SERMONS, 



BY THE LATE 



REV. WILLIAM BOUTON WEED, 



PASTOPw OF THE FIEST CONGREGATIONAL CHUECH AND SOCIETY OF 






PUBLISHED BY ORDER OF SAID SOCIETY, 

FOR THE BENEFIT OF HIS FAMILY, 



V^ 



NEW YORK: 
EGBERT CARTER &; BROTHERS, 

530 BROADWAY, 
1861. 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1861, by 

JOHN A. WEED, Nokwalk, Conn., 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the District 

of Connecticut. 



RENNIE, SHEA k LINDSAY, 

SlEBEOTYPKRS AND ElECTROTYPEBS, 

81, 83 & 85 Centre-Street, 
NEW YORK. 

R. CRAIGHEAD, Printkr, 
81, 83 & 85 Centre-Street, New York. 



PREFACE 



At the regular annual meeting of the First Ecclesiastical 
Society of Norwalk, held a few days after the death of their 
lamented pastor, it was voted that a volume of his Sermons 
should be published by said Society, for the benefit of his fam- 
ily.* A committee was appointed to carry this vote into exe- 
cution, with the unders^swiding that the undersigned would 
select and revise th^.,.g€raions, and attend to their being carried 
through the pre»^ He would most gladly have been released 
from having this responsibility added to other urgent duties, 
but did not feel at liberty peremptorily to decline it. While 
he, therefore, is solely accountable for the preparation of this 
volume, he pleads in extenuation of such faults as may be found 
in his work, that it has been performed under a pressure of 
other duties, and at hours appropriate to relaxation and rest 
rather than labor. 

In the selection of the following from nearly eight hundred 
discourses which were put into his hands, regard has been had 
to the judgment of discreet friends, to the importance and vari- 
ety of the topics discussed, to the author's own judgment upon 
his work, so far as it could be learned from circumstances, and 
to the propriety of bringing out his well-known views in 
theology. 

In the work of revision and publication, — which has been 
found not a little difficult, owing to the rapidity with which the 
author wrote, and the fact that he had no view to pubhcation, 

* At the express instance of the family^ the vote provided that so much of 
the profits of the publication as might be required should be appropriated 
to erect a suitable monument to the memory of the author of the Sermons 
(his work being his best and most lasting monument). 



IV PREFACE. 

probably, — it has been deemed fit to leave the author's language 
precisely as he uttered it (except the conxction of obvious verbal 
errors), even in cases where his own revision might have altered 
it. Instances may have occurred, owing to the obscurity of 
the chirography, where a word is not correctly interpreted. 

In the form and typography of the volume, the object has 
been to furnish to all the friends and admirers of the author the 
opportunity of obtaining as many as possible of his discourses 
at the least price consistent with due regard to legibility and 
fitness. 

May the great Head of the Church crown the volume with 
his blessing, so that by it his servant, being dead, may yet ef- 
fectually speak the glorious gospel which he loved, to the souls 
for which he longed ; and so that those to whom he ministered 
may always have in affectionate and sanctifying remembrance 
the words which he spake when he was yet present with them ! 

S. B. S. B. 



The first of the following obituary notices is mainly made up 
of statements which were presented in the sermon preached at 
the funeral of Mr. Weed, together with a brief notice of the 
exercises of that occasion. 

The Tribute by Mr. Booth, now of the Mercer-Street Church, 
New York, he was prevented, by the lateness of the hour, from 
pronouncing on the day of the funeral, and, by request, it was 
delivered to the congregation on a subsequent Sabbath, and 
published in the Norwalk Gazette. 



CONTENTS. 



Obitfaey ITotioe, from N', Y. Observer vii 

Teibijte, by Kev. K. E. Booth x 

SEEMOISrS. 
No. Page 

1. 1 John iy. 16. — God is love 1 

2. 2 Pet. m. 16. — Things hard to be understood, &c 11 

3. Ps. xcvi. 6. — Strength and beauty are in his sanctuary. . . 21 

4. Rom. yiii. 26. — The Spirit itself maketh intercession, &c.. . 30 

5. Key. iy. 3. — A rainbow round about the throne, &c 41 

6. Is. XLi. 15. — A new sharp threshing instrument, &c 50 

7. Rom. yii. 21. — When I would do good, evil is present, &c. 61 

8. EccL. XII. 3-5. — When the keepers of the house shall trem- 

ble, &c ' 71 

9. 1 Tim. m. 15 ; Eph. xi. 20, 21.— The church of the living 

God, &c 82 

10. Heb. yiii. 6. — ^Mediator of a better covenant, &c 95 

11. 1 Pet. hi. 8. — Be courteous 106 

12. John hi. 7. — Ye must be born again 115 

13. Ex. xv, 11. — Lord — glorious in holiness 126 

14. John hi. 16. — God so loved the world, &c 136 

15. 1 Pet. I. 7.— Gold that perisheth 148 

16. Peoy. XIX. 11. — His glory to pass over a transgression 160 

17. 2 Kings xyii. 33. — They feared the Lord and served their 

own gods 171 

18. Ps. XVII. 15. — Satisfied when I awake in thy likeness 182 

19. 1 OoE. xv. 58. — Steadfast, unmovable, always abounding 

in the work of the Lord 192 

20. Heb. xi. 3. — How shall we escape if we neglect, &c 203 

21. 1 John ii. 1. — If any man sin we have an advocate, &c. . . 213 

22. Rom. v. 19. — For as by one man's disobedience, &c 221 

23. Rom. y. 19. — ^For as by one man's disobedience, &c 231 

A* 



VI CONTENTS. 

24. 2 Thess. II. 13. — God hath from the beginning chosen yon 

to salvation, &c 241 

25. 2 Thess. ii. 13, 14. — God hath from the beginning chosen 

you to salvation, &c 252 

26. Is. LV. 1. — Ho, every one that thirsteth, &c 263 

2T. Matt. xvi. 16.— What shall it profit, &c 2Y4 

28. Job ii. 4.— Skin for skin, &c 283 

29. Col. ii. 9. — For in him dwelleth all the fulness, &c 293 

30. CoL. II. 10. — And ye are complete in him 304 

31. EccL. III. 11. — ^He hath made every thing beautiful, &c 315 

82. Matt. xxv. 46. — Everlasting punishment, &c 326 

33. 2 Sam. xxiii. 5. — ^Everlasting covenant, &c 336 

34. Is. IX. 6. — And the government shall be upon his shoulder 345 

35. Eph. II. 3. — By nature the children of vs^rath 356 

36. Eph. ii. 3. — By nature the children of wrath 368 

87. EocL. VII. 29. — God hath made man upright, but they, &c. 380 

88. Matt. xii. 33. — ^Either make the tree good, &c 392 

89. 1 OoE. I. 21.— Eor after that, in the wisdom of God, &c.. . 403 



BIOGEAPHICAL NOTICE 

From the New York Observer. 



'Ro minister of the gospel has filled such a place among the 
churches of Fairfield county, especially during the last five years, 
as the Rev. William Bouton Weed. Indeed, we question whether 
he had his superior among the preachers of Connecticut. Many 
hearts in all the churches in this county, and many others all over 
the land, will be deeply moved by the sad announcement that this 
distinguished servant of Christ has rested from his labors. 

He was born of pious parents, in ISTew Canaan, Connecticut, 
March 22, 1811. An interesting fact is related of his childhood, 
illustrative of that astonishing memory for which he was so distin- 
guished in subsequent life. One Saturday afternoon, the wife of 
his pastor (Rev. William Bonney) gave him a copy of Watts' Di- 
mne Songs^ with the request that, when he had committed them to 
memory, he would come to her and recite them. He attended to 
the duties of the Sabbath as usual, and repeated the whole book to 
her on Monday morning. 

At the age of thirteen, he entered the academy at ISTew Canaan. 
In the autumn of 1827, he joined the sophomore class at Yale Col- 
lege. Here he took rank with the first of his class, among whom 
were such men as Chancellor Barnard, Professors Stanley and 
Loomis, Judge Woodrufi^, and others equally distinguished. After 
his graduation, he spent two years in an academy at Chilicothe, 
Ohio, where a sermon on the text "Be ye thankful," was blessed 
to his conversion. Then he spent three years in a similar post at 
Lagrange, Tennessee, where, in connection with two others, he is 
said to have founded a Presbyterian church, of which he was or- 
dained an elder. Here he became . an instructor of a son (or sons) 
of General Gaines, and went with the family to Louisiana, and to 
Pensacola, Florida, where he remained one year. 

In 1836, he came to ^orwalk, and, entering the office of the Hon. 
Thaddeus Betts, pursued the study of law, which he had commenced 
in college, and continued at the South. Removing to ITew Haven, 
he joined the law-school of Yale College, and at the expiration of 
another term of sfx months was ready to be admitted to the bar. 
It is not difficult to predict what rank he would have attained in a 
profession to which he was so admirably adapted ; nor to trace the 
effect of his legal studies and discipline in his subsequent career in 
another profession. For to another profession it now pleased God 
to draw his heart, in answer, it is believed, to the earnest, perse- 
vering prayers of his mother, and the last wish of a dying sister ; 



Vlll BIOGEAPIIICAL NOTICE. 

and, constrained by his convictions, lie united himself to the theo- 
logical class of Yale College. At the expiration of two years, he 
was licensed to preach the gospel ; and, having been employed for 
a few months by the church in Westport, he was ordained and in- 
stalled pastor at Stratford, December 4, 1839. He was married on 
the Tth of July, 1840, to Harriet A. Miller, of North Stamford. 
During his pastorate at Stratford he received earnest overtures 
from the first Presbyterian church in Princeton, New Jersey, as 
from other churches, subsequently, at Norwalk, which he felt com- 
pelled to decline. In May, 1855, he was dismissed at his own re- 
quest, having received a call to the first church in Norwalk, where 
he was installed on the 27th of the following June. 

One who sat with him for three years in college, and who has 
been permitted to sit under his preaching frequently during the last 
two years of his ministry, may be allowed to give his attestation to 
the superior ability and attainments of his classmate as a scholar, 
his uprightness as a man, his humility and devotedness as a Chris- 
tian, his soundness as a theologian, his pre-eminent power as a lo- 
gician and preacher, his impartial faithfulness and kindness as a 
pastor, especially attentive to the sick and poor of Christ's flock, 
and, in fine, his uniform punctuality and thoroughness in the dis- 
charge of every duty. 

Early in the last summer it became apparent that his constant 
and energetic absorption in his work had greatly overtasked and 
impaired his physical nature, and it then for the first time became 
known to his people that for years he had been the subject of a 
chronic disease. About the last of July he sought restoration of 
exhausted health among the springs and mountains of West Vir- 
ginia, and then of Saratoga. But it was too late. One Sabbath 
since that time, he was permitted to preach ; and, on the first Sab- 
bath in November, to receive new members into his church — and 
then his public work was done. Until within the last few days of 
his life he clung to the hope of being able to resume the ministry 
which he had received of the Lord Jesus ; then it was reluctantly 
relinquished. 

In the language of his beloved companion, his end was peace. 
He committed himself into the hands of God, to do with him as he 
pleased. He said, in looking back upon his labors, he felt that they 
were very, very imperfect. He had no righteousness of his own. 
Were it not for the great atonement, he should have no hope. He 
depended entirely on the merits of Christ — his precious blood. His 
language was, — 

" In my hand no price I bring ; 
Simply to thy cross I cling." 

At one time, after a period of dreadful pain, he said, " I am willing 
God should do as he pleases with me, if he will only let me love 
and serve him through eternity." At another time, " *I will never 
leave thee nor forsake thee' — precious promise!'- 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. IX 

One morning, after a night of great suffering, he said to his wife : 
"I shall have to leave it to you to tell this dear people how much I 
love them, and how grateful I am to them for all their kindness. I 
hope this event will prove a blessing to them ; that they will love 
each other more, pray more, and be more faithful." 

In this connection we are permitted to make an extract from his 
last will and testament, executed by him a few days before his de- 
cease. The following sentence is the last item, viz. : 

" To the dear people to whom I have ministered in the gospel in 
this place, I bequeath — ^the only legacy I can — my fervent prayers, 
that the Good Spirit of all grace and love may abide with them 
forever — may speedily and adequately supply their pastoral vacancy, 
and multiply unto them all spiritual blessings, even as they have, 
in such a variety of ways, blessed me." 

On Wednesday afternoon, December 12th, after a consultation of 
physicians, it was discovered that he was failing rapidly. When 
his attending physician announced to him that his time was short, 
like Hezeldah, he turned his face to the wall, and said, " It is well ;" 
and shortly after, "Christ is all;" and then again, ''How precious!" 

When the writer came to his bedside, at nine o'clock, he had 
nearly lost all power of communication with the outer world. He 
was able, however, to whisper, "Pray;" and prayer was offered; 
and then, " Sing ;" and lay sweetly quiet, while the hymns, — 

"There is a fountain, fill'd with blood," 
'^ Rock of ages, cleft for me," — 

were sung, and various texts of G-od's word, and verses of hymns, 
were repeated in his dying ear. And so, on the morning of the 13th 
December, this dear servant of God, " having served his generation 
by the will of God, fell on sleep." 

On the 18th, "devout men carried him to his burial, and made 
great lamentation over him." More than thirty ministers of the 
gospel, of five different denominations, were present to testify their 
respect and love ; and the large church in which he had preached 
Christ's gospel, heavily shrouded in mourning, was thronged to its 
utmost capacity, while hundreds were compelled to go away who 
could not gain entrance. Mournful dirges, mingled with anthems 
of faith and triumph, exquisitely sung, expressed the various emo- 
tions that agitated the great concourse. Prayers were offered at his 
house, in the church, and at the grave, by Eev. Messrs. Piatt, Ooe, 
McLean, and Atkinson ; hymns read by Eev. Messrs. Burr and An- 
derson ; the sermon preached by Rev, S. B. S. Bissell, from Hebrews 
xiii. 7, 8 ; addresses made by Rev. Drs. Hewit and Linsley and Rev. 
R. R. Booth, and the benediction pronounced by Rev. Mr. Dimock; 
and then, as the sun went down in glory, painting the fleecy clouds 
with the most gorgeous colors, the crowd lingeringly turned away 
from the place of sepulture. Yours truly, S. B. S. B. 

NoRWALK, Conn., December 18, 1860. 



A TRIBUTE 

TO THE LATE 

REV. WILLIAM B. WEED, 

OF NORWALK, 

BY REV. ROBERT R. BOOTH, 

OF STAMFOKD. 



"Whenevee a minister of Christ is called to rest from Ms labors, 
in the midst of the people of his charge, there must needs be a 
special influence exerted by the fact and manner of his death. He 
seals his life-long testimony for the gospel by his own last struggle. 
Having watched for souls, and labored with many prayers and tears, 
he goes up to his Master to render his account. . The sound of his 
voice ceases to be heard in the sacred desk, and the consolations ot 
his ministry are ended. If he has been a true man and a faithful 
servant of the Lord Jesus, the departure of such a one casts a 
solemn and profound impression upon the community, and many a 
heart is thrilled with a sense of loss, like that which forced Elisha 
to cry aloud as he saw Elijah parted from him and taken up into 
heaven — " My father, my father, the chariot of Israel and the horse- 
men thereof" 

^Nevertheless, it is a ground of satisfaction to reflect that good 
men continue to influence the world and to bless it after they are 
dead, and that often their blessed memory is a source of power as 
distinct and valuable' as were their living deeds. Thus when it 
comes to pass, by the mysterious providence of God, that the places 
which once knew them know them no more, there often remain, 
lingering in the familiar scenes, the echoes of their earnest tones — 
the shadows of their holy presence — the fragrance of their Chris- 
tian lives — by which, though dead, they speak and move the hearts 
of men. 

The pastor which this flock of Christ has been called to remit to 
^ the Master, was a man of such unusual worth and power, that the 
' impressions made by his removal might reasonably be expected to 
be very deep and salutary. To aid in confirming and perpetuating 
your remembrance of him, as much as lieth in me — to revive during 
this Sabbath hour some of those striking traits which made his 
ministry so distinguished in this section of the State, I will gladly 



:6lOGKAPHICAL NOTICE. xi 

say a few things concerning his character and his work in the vine- 
yard of the Lord. 

My acquaintance with Mr. Weed ran back over a period of twenty 
years. In the beginning of his ministry in Stratford, I first listened 
to his preaching, and year by year during the summer season had 
opportunity to derive instruction and delight from his impressive 
ministrations. 

It was in Stratford (which was his first settlement) that his min- 
isterial character was formed, his peculiar reputation was acquired, 
and his great work was done. He went there a young man, with a 
mind richly stored with learning, and a heart all agljow with Chris- 
tian fervor. He burst like a new planet upon that quiet village, 
where preaching had before been exhibited more as a sob-er sacred 
duty than as a divine and thrilling art. From the very beginning 
of his service there he revealed himself as a remarkable man, and 
his fame went abroad into the adjacent country. A glorious revival 
of religion followed soon, coming like the warm breath of spring to 
unlock the ice-bound earth and fill all hearts with gladness. Many 
precious souls were then gathered into the -Church, the greater part 
of whom remain unto this present, well-instructed, earnest Chris- 
tiaft, the strength and substance of that church. His whole course 
Sin tratford was signalized by the most laborious study, by ardent 
and devoted labors, and by a remarkable earnestness of action, 
truthfulness and plainness of speech, and an intense force of life, 
which made him the central influence of the town. His sermons 
were always driven home. His views of truth and duty became 
the standards of opinion. Men of all conditions and of all varieties 
of views were attracted to his pulpit, and notwithstanding the ec- 
centricities of his character — probably more apparent there than in 
his late ministry among you — ^he has left an impression for good 
upon that community which will not pass away while the genera- 
tion that knew him continues on the stage of action. 

His habits of study there were unusual — even in this period, where 
no minister can sustain himself before a cultivated congregation with- 
out earnest application. It was not so much from the requirements 
of his field as from the absorbing intellectual passions of his mind, 
that he gave himself up to the profoundest research and the most 
extensive reading. He took delight in sounding the deepest springs 
of truth, and in enriching the products of thought with the finest 
graces of rhetoric and the fairest charms of nature. 

Such labors were of course exhaustive in the extreme, and I have 
not been at all surprised to learn that during many of these years 
of close application he suflfered from the disease which brought him 
to the grave at last. Indeed it ought to be no secret to the churches 
of our land, that the 'brain-worTc which is exacted of their ministers 
is, to the last degree, trying and pernicious to their physical and 
vital powers. Many a pastor writes his sermons literally with his 
own heart's blood, and consumes himself in the effort to instruct 
and satisfy his people. As a relief from these labors, so abundant, 



Xll BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. 

Mr. Weed sought and found great refresliment during his life in 
boating. Often he spent days afar off in the Sound, out of sight 
and hearicg, quieting his fevered mind with the music of the winds 
and waves. He once told me that some of his best thoughts and 
clearest views of truth came to him upon the waters, when the 
mind was in this soothing contact with the serene life of nature. 
Probably it was partly owing to this habit that the freshness and 
vigor of his intellect endured amid the frailties and sicknesses of the 
body. 

In looking back over this period of your late pastor's life, and in- 
deed in summing up my whole acquaintance with him, I find my 
mind charged with a clear and strong impression of his decided 
superiority to most men of his own age, and of a similar sphere of 
influence. The talent and application which made him the eminent 
preacher that he was, would have given him distinction in any 
secular calling ; though in no other calling than the one he actually 
pursued, would he have found so many incentives to devoted labor, 
so much that was congenial to his own mental type, and so broad 
an area for usefulness in the highest and most lasting sense of the 
idea of use and help to others. "When such a man is taken fmm 
among us, it is as when a mighty cedar falls on Lebanon, or a mil 
oak is overthrown on Bashan. The traits and peculiarities of such 
a one become a legacy of r-enown unto the churches — a stimulus 
to after-efforts — an ideal of excellence long to be remembered. 

Of some of the more prominent characteristics of this beloved 
pastor and honored minister of Christ, it will not be impertinent to 
speak, even though I mention things quite familiar to those who 
have enjoyed his ministry for several years. 

His splendid intellectual endowment was a matter of common 
fame. His mind was clear, searching, and profound. He delighted 
to struggle with great problems, and to penetrate the mysteries of 
Providence and grace. Pew men were so comprehensive in their 
views of truth, and so plain in their presentation of it. What he 
studied he understood as far as it was possible, and what he under- 
stood he communicated freely. His sermons were always perme- 
ated and controlled by his own life -thoughts, and hence were al- 
ways worth the careful attention of the most cultivated minds. In 
the work of communicating truth, he was greatly aided by his fer- 
vent Imagination. This faculty he possessed in a remarkable degree. 
Eeasoning and illustration from analogy was the source of much of 
his power. In his view, nature, providence, and grace were all parts 
of one magnificent, harmonious whole ; and he found apt and beau- 
tiful illustrations for the highest truths in all the works of God. 
The charms which this copiousness and profundity of illustration 
threw over his discourses cannot be forgotten. It clothed his mas- 
sive thoughts with fresh and living beauty. It made him one of 
the most suggestive and quickening preachers I ever heard. Indeed, 
his possession of this fervor of the imagination, joined to a most 
logical understanding, entitled him to be ranked among the men oj 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. XIU 

genius who have adorned the pulpit of Kew England. ]^o notice 
of his intellectual character would be complete which omitted al- 
lusion to his retentive memory. In this respect he was a real 
prodigy. The faculty seemed completely under his control, able to 
accomplish any work which he exacted of it. Undoubtedly mem- 
ory entered largely into the natural endowment of his mind, as is 
seen by the anecdote of the readiness with which the contents of 
the hymri-book were acquired in his boyhood in a few hours — but 
cultivation had very much to do with that capacity of his to bind 
sermon after sermon upon his brain with increasing readiness and 
accuracy. I have heard him say that he regarded memory as the 
most mechanical thing in the world — a faculty to be enlarged by 
practice to almost any limit ; a theory undoubtedly true in relation 
to himself — though it would probably fail in its application to most 
other men. His talent in conversation was another noteworthy 
characteristic. When the mood of speech was upon him in the 
social circle, he became a centre of interest. His terse, nervous 
style, his epigrammatic sentences, his sharp wit, and his ready recol- 
lection of every thing that he had ever read or heard, enabled him 
to instruct and delight those who met him in familiar intercourse. 
He was so prominent a character, and his opinions were so pecu- 
liarly his own, that it was always interesting to draw him out, and 
conversation with him was never thrown away. 

I should not be doing justice to Mr. Weed if I left it to be in- 
ferred that his intellectual ability was the chief excellence of his 
character. It is true that the first impression that he made was 
usually by his superior talent — but his moral worth was more and 
more appreciated as he was better known. Under his peculiar man- 
ner, always blunt, and sometimes rough, there lay one of the kind- 
est and truest hearts that ever beat in human breast. He was ex- 
ceedingly helpful in his profession to those who needed his assistance. 
He was most scrupulous about the fulfilment of his own ministerial 
obligations — even creating work, to his own detriment, which he 
might have readily passed by. He was an honest man in every 
sense, and in the highest sense. Il^either fear nor favor could in- 
duce him to turn from the straight path which he believed that con- 
science pointed out. He had his full share of the inheritance of 
the Puritans — in a spirit loyal to truth, hostile to compromises with 
sin, and ready to swear even to his own hurt. In his ministrations 
among the sick and afflicted, he was full of tenderness and sym- 
pathy. He was a true friend to the poor, and always accessible to 
those who came to him with demands for advice or consolation. 
But there was also much beyond these traits of moral excellence in 
the strictly Christian devotion and experience of his life. He was 
altogether absorbed in the interests of his sacred calling, and 
esteemed it the loftiest obligation and the most sacred privilege to 
preach Christ to dying men. He held strictly to the Bible views of 
sin and of salvation, and he did not hesitate to proclaim the soul- 
abasing doctrines of the gospel. Christ was the central principle in 



XIV BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. 

his theology — the vital power in his preaching — the sure support of 
his daily life. I suppose his sympathies were to the last with the 
teachings of the early Fathers of ^ew England, and that he re- 
tained his strong hostility to innovating tendencies which might 
draw the churches from the faith once delivered to the saints. 

His life-long devotion to the saving doctrines of the gospel was 
truthfully illustrated and consummated in his last experience. It 
was, as described on the funeral occasion, just such a departure to 
the heavenly rest as adorns the doctrines of God our Saviour, and 
demonstrates the precious reality of the faith in Christ. To cease 
from labors in the prime of manhood, among an affectionate people, 
and a beloved family circle — to leave his studies unfinished — his 
work undone — his dear ones without their natural protector — surely 
this was a trial from which even the Christian minister might 
shrink. But the faith which he had preached sustained him glori- 
ously. He left a cheering testimony to the truth that 

" Jesus can make a dying bed 
Feel soft as downy pillows are." 

"With his eye upon the cross of Jesus, and his trust placed upon His 
all-sufficient sacrifice — he was enabled to pass the flood with praises 
on his lips, while the vision of the celestial city rose bright and fair 
before him. His death will stand out in the recollections of his 
friends and people for a long time to come, as a precious exhibition 
of the believer's triumph in the last earthly conflict, and of the near- 
ness and helpfulness of Jesus to his own, as they pass out into the 
unseen and the eternal. 

I have confidence, dear friends, that your sense of this bereave- 
ment is not yet much blunted, and that the few things I have been 
able to say to you about your pastor, wull tend to keep him still be- 
fore your minds. Let your memories of the dead be always green, 
and in the great reunion which is near at hand you will meet them 
as friends who were out of sight for a little while. 

The aflliction which has thus been laid upon you, had a voice 
which sounded loud as a trumpet's blast in every ear : the echoes 
of its notes are still floating through air, and may be heard by those 
who listen, comforting the saints — warning the impenitent, and say- 
ing unto all, *'Be ye also ready, for in such an hour as ye think not 
the Son of Man cometh." 

May grace be given unto us, that we may hear the Master's voice 
with gladness, and be prepared and ready to obey the call, " Come 
up hither." 



SERMONS. 



" God is lover— I John iv. 16. 

When the Westminster assembly of divines were engaged 
in preparing that Catechism which, so long as the distinctive 
doctrines of the Christian revelation are held in honor, must, 
Ave think, be regarded as the best and most perfect digest of 
them that ever was made or ever can be, — when they agreed 
upon the first three questions with their answers, it was as- 
signed to one of their number to bring in, for the considera- 
tion of the body at their next day's session, an answer to 
the question, What is God ? He was to define the Almighty, 
and, overwhelmed by the magnitude of the task, he begged 
his brethren, before separating, to unite in a special suppli- 
cation in his behalf — that he might be divinely guided in 
performing it. The venerable Dr. Calamy arose accordingly, 
and addressed the throne of grace. " O God (he began), 
who art a spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in thy 
being, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth," &c. 
When he had concluded, the young brother for whom the 
prayer had been ofiered, exclaimed : " It is answered. He 
who has been our mouth with God in this supplication, God 
has put into his mouth the words I am to employ in answer- 
ing the question — What is God ? I know not how to alter 
or improve them. Let them stand as part of the Cate- 
chism." And so they did. And if that profound and ac- 
complished scholar, to whom the Bible, its truths, its author, 
had been the perpetual study of years — if it was judged im- 
possible that without a divine assistance he should give, in a 
single sentence, so admirable and comprehensive a definition 
of the most incomprehensible of objects, what less than a 
divine assistance, and in the highest sense of the term, could 
have enabled the writer of the text, whom, on his first intro- 

1 



2 SERMONS BY THE LA.TE 

diiction to lis, we find on board a fishing-smack mending the 
nets by which he got his Uving, to define the Almighty in 
one word. Those powers of generahzation by which all 
the movements of our planet, which give birth to its changes 
of seasons, and day and night, are referred to three simple 
causes ; and all its rocks and earths, its insects and birds, and 
quadrupeds and fishes, are reduced respectively to a few sim- 
ple classes — were in every case originated by some of the 
profoundest and most cultivated minds that God ever made. 
Does any imagine this uneducated fisherman capable of orig- 
inating that power of generalization by which the author 
and maker of all things, the infinite Jehovah, the eternal 
God, in all the attributes of his nature and all the works of 
his hands, is simplified and condensed into a single syllable 
of four letters ? Can our text possibly be the word of John ? 
Is it not the word of God ? Who but God could have de- 
fined himself so exactly and completely ? We proceed to 
the proof of this ; and in endeavoring to evince the exactness 
and completeness of this definition, the proposition we are 
to insist upon, is this : that all we know of God — all the 
discoveries which the light of nature or of revelation enable 
us to make respecting him, are simply so many exhibitions 
of love. We said lately, that each of the natural elements 
is capable of a great variety of operations. To distend your 
lungs for the purposes of respiration and keep your blood 
in a state of healthful purity, to keep that fire in a state of 
combustion, to equalize and diffuse the solar rays over the 
face of the earth, and to form and sustain the cloudy cisterns 
that water it, to enable you to hear each other's voice and 
to enjoy the dehghtful luxury of music, to waft that sound 
on its watery journey and bear up that bird in its naviga- 
tion of the sky — are functions which would seem to have but 
little in common with each other ; but they are all functions 
of the one element of air. They are simply the atmosphere 
exerting itself and operating in these various ways. Even so 
how manifold and diverse soever the works and ways of God 
may be, they are all so many displays of the one moral ele- 
ment of love. They are simply pure, transparent benevo- 
lence manifesting itself in this variety of modes. 

I. The work of creation was a work of love. Take the 
living world as it first came into existence (I say the living 
world — for the material earth was simply created to be the 
dwelling, the home of many mansions for the manifold orders 



KEY. WM. B. WEED. 3 

of its living inhabitants), and there is one fact which we per- 
ceive to be true of all of them, from the insect, yea, from the 
animalcule up to man — they were all made to be happy. 
Each of the inferior creatures is provided with an organiza- 
tion to which the appliances of external nature are so har- 
moniously adapted as to make enjoyment the prevailing 
tenor of its life. The same is true of the animal nature of 
man. And if to him a social and a moral nature are also 
assigned, which demand more and higher than merely ma- 
terial, physical sources of enjoyment — that demand is abund- 
antly provided for as regards the former in his relations to 
his fellow-men, and as regards the latter in his relations to 
God. Had he been content to remain in the state in which 
he was created, he would always have been as happy in all 
respects as the sporting insect or as the bird of song. Now. 
in the fact that all creatures were thus made to be happy, 
we discover the principle, the motive, which prompted to 
their creation. Existence is not necessarily a blessing. To 
many of the highest order of created beings, it is and is to 
be, in consequence of their wicked self-perversion, an un- 
mitigated curse. It might have been so from the first to 
every created being. Such irregularities might have been 
introduced into their original physical organization as should 
make them per]Detual victims of pain and suffering. And 
the same or a worse result would have followed if, with their 
present organization, they liad been denied the external pro- 
visions which its wants demand : with appetites, but with 
nothing to meet their cravings ; with eyes, and with no light 
to see by — or, as in the case of men, with social natures, yet 
each debarred from intercourse with all the rest of his spe- 
cies ; with a moral, God-craving nature, yet left in perpetual 
ignorance of him. In such a case we could not hesitate to 
pronounce that sheer malevolence was the motive of the 
Creator in originating all these myriads of victim existences. 
Now a directly opposite state of facts bespeaks a directly op- 
posite motive. If malevolence alone could create beings on 
purpose to be wretched, what else but pure benevolence, 
what else but love could create beings on purpose to be 
happy ? In that beautiful personification in which our Bry- 
ant represents the new-born w^orlds setting out for their re- 
spective positions in the vast of space and singing as they 
go — in one blazing band — in the soft air wrapping these 
spheres of ours, — in the fields and fountains that shine with 



4: SERMONS BY THE LATE 

morn, ere love is brooding and life is born, and breathing 
myriads are waking to light, to rejoice like ns in motion and 
life, — the fact that these breathing myriads were waking to 
a rejoicing life, was proof that love was the parent from 
which they sprang. Endue the devil with omnipotence, and 
it would be just like him to presently give birth to a vast 
creation so constituted as to be as miserable as himself. It 
was just Kke the blessed God of love to give birth to a vast 
creation so constituted as to be as blessed in their measure 
as he in his. • Love delights in the multipH cation of happi- 
ness, and so the Eternal, perfectly happy in himself when 
there was no ci-eation, when nothing but himself existed, 
just because he is a God of love, determined to multiply 
that element by peopling his vacant universe with globes 
full of happy creatures, who should awake the solitary silence 
of its void of space with an endlessly-varied but all-harmo- 
nious symphony of gladness. 

11. God is love in all his acts of providence towards his 
creatures. And, 

1. His benefactions are so many streams from the fountain 
of love. Observe that the mere conferring of benefits is not 
necessarily a proof of a benevolent spirit, or even of ordinary 
good-will towards the recipient. The inhabitants of this 
place paid several thousand dollars last year for the support 
of paupers. In the case of how many of them was it owing 
to the promptings of pure benevolence ? In the case of how 
many of them was it simply owing to the fact that they were 
obliged to, and but for the legal obligation they would have 
sufiered every man and woman and child, on the pauper list, 
to perish before they would have advanced them a shilling ? 
Again, a beggar presents himself at your door, ragged, di- 
lapidated, poverty-stricken, and asks for food. You give 
him a plentiful meal — as plentiful as you would furnish to 
one of your own children. But what then? Do you love 
him like one of them ? Do you necessarily love him in any 
proper sense of the word at all ? Let him come again to- 
morrow, and the next day, and the next, with the same 
demand, and see. He would very likely soon discover that he 
was considered no better than a nuisance, and that however 
you might be disposed to feed him once — to get rid of him, 
or from mere common-place pity, or shame to turn away a 
needy fellow-creature — you are far enough from any such 
regard for him as would make you wilHng to become his 



KEV. WM. B. WEED. 5 

perpetual steward and provider, however needy he might be. 
In a word, the benefactions that spring from a principle of 
love are distinguished by their voluntariness and their perma- 
nence — as long as the means of the giver or the need of the 
receiver lasts. Behold the distino^uishino^ features of God's 
benefactions. Who compelled him to become overseer, and 
provider to this great poor-house of a world ? For such is 
the actual relation between them. What forbids him from 
burning it down over the heads of its inmates, and dismiss- 
ing them all to annihilation ? What compels him to give to 
the beasts their food, and to the young ravens which cry : 
and to man, the largest pensioner on his bounty of all, and 
the least deserving ? What law but that of his own mighty- 
hearted benevolence, constrains him to be the infinite ante- 
t}^e of Joseph in Egypt on the scale of worlds, and from 
his unexhausted storehouse minister sustenance, all that con- 
stitutes the happiness of life, and life itself, to all their myriad 
creatures? Then, too, the steadiness, the permanent uni- 
formity with which he discharges this vocation — not less to 
us in the sixtieth generation from Adam, than to Adam him- 
self; not less to the now existing animal races, than to those 
that winnowed the air and roamed the groves and swam the 
four rivers of primeval Eden ; each successive generation of 
man and beast, as it wakes to being, is sure to find a kind 
protector and provider in him, as each successive child of a 
faithful parent is sure to find the corresponding attributes in 
him. To what can we refer this but to that unfailing love, 
that element of perpetual motion in God as in men, which 
never wears out, because it has the life and vigor of an eter- 
nal principle ; and never Avearies, because its strength con- 
sists in exercise ; and never stops for want of requital, be- 
cause it is its own reward. If the Lord is good to all, if his 
loving-kindness is over all his works, as a matter of uncom- 
pelled, spontaneous impulse, if this is universally true at 
present, and always has been as universally true ever since 
he made them, the only assignable explanation is — because 
he loves to be. 

2. But even as that page which the chemist has covered 
with characters in invisible ink, appears at first a mere blank, 
but when exposed for a time to the sunlight, exhibits those 
characters with perfect distinctness, — even so the page of 
Providence, which seems at first sight to bear no traces of 
love, yet in the light of reason, experience, and revelation, 

1* 



6 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

is seen to be covered all over with nothing else. Let any of 
our adult hearers revert to the period of childhood, and say 
what are the proofs of parental affection which memory 
discerns there ? Is it merely the fondlings and the caresses 
that were lavished on you, the care that watched over your 
safety, the toil and the labor that provided for your every 
want ? Find you not as decisive proof of it in the parental 
faithfulness that crossed and restrained your unruly w^ill, and 
crushed and mortified your wayward passions, and corrected 
you for your faults ? You thought it hard, perhaps, then ; 
but are you not satisfied it was love now? How many a 
virtuous and estimable man and woman has reason to ex- 
claim, What a good-for-nothing wretch — w^hat a curse to 
myself and to everybody should I have been, if my parents 
had let me have my own way. Thanks to their affectionate 
fidelity that tamed me early; that made, even with the 
compulsion of the rod of correction, the foolishness that was 
bound up in my childish heart fly far from me. To such 
the words of Solomon are no enigma — He that spareth the 
rod, hateth his son — but he that loveth him, chasteneth him 
betimes : that is, supposing him to need it. And is it any 
more difficult to understand those other words of the royal 
preacher — For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth — even 
as a father the son in whom his soul delighteth. We do 
not hear of the blessed Father chastening his angels, cross- 
ing their wills, bereaving them of their comforts, afflicting 
them with pain and suffering — because they have no carnal- 
ity to eradicate, no sin to mortify, no half-developed graces 
to be made complete. They are perfect already, and do not 
need correction; and he loves them too well to inflict it 
wantonly. His imperfect earthly children do need it, and 
he loves them too well not to inflict it. The crossing of will, 
the bereavement of comforts, the afflictive visitation of pain 
and suffering, in which the chastisements of the Lord con- 
sist, have all the tendency to correct and exterminate what 
is earthly, what is evil in them, and make them partakers of 
his holiness. Is it not a loving tendency ? For what is the 
essence of love but the disposition to further, by whatever 
means, the substantial good of its object ? Is the divine 
good- will to man displayed only in the bright beams of the 
sun ? Is it not manifested as clearly in the dark and murky 
cloud which supplies our springs and fertilizes our fields ? 
Even so the beams of darkness, not less than the beams of 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 7 

light, are emanations from the fount of love — and not a 
saint in glory to-day, but feels to the bottom of his soul that 
he never could have got there with one chastising stroke the 
less than that eternal love, which destined him for those 
heavenly seats, inflicted as part of his necessary preparation 
for them. 

III. The moral exhibitions of God are all displays of love. 

1. This is true of the law he hath given us. Do ye need 
to be told w^hat manner of spirit he was of, the burden of 
whose exhortations to the flock, of whom the Holy Spirit 
had made him part overseer, w^as — " My little children, love 
one another." Was not the pen that wrote these words 
dipped in the expressed essence, was not the heart that 
dictated it steeped in the sweet ambrosia of love ? Behold 
the totality of the law of God. Behold the Sire Almighty 
hovering over his w^ayward, wretched, self-victimized, mu- 
tually-victimizing human family, and whispering in the ear 
of one and all : " My children, love your Father — love one 
another." He asks no more. Oh, if they understand, we 
say not their duty, but their interest, w^ould they do any 
less ? How every cloud of sorrow, shame, and woe, would 
roll away from the face of the earth, before the bursting 
sunlight of universal peace and gladness, were that law in- 
delibly engraven, imperially enthroned in its universal heart. 
Who, in tMt case, could tell earth from heaven ? What else 
but that love-law, precisely thus engraven, thus enthroned 
in its universal heart, makes heaven a synonym for blessed- 
ness? And what are all its specifications but so many means 
of good secured, and evil shunned ? And what but the in- 
finity of benevolence could have dictated such a choice and 
unexceptive instrumentality of universal happiness ? You 
are about to journey to some far and hitherto trackless re- 
gion. An individual of ample resources has undertaken to 
make a road for you. You enter on it and find it a perfect 
luxury. No rugged mountains to be climbed, no dark de- 
files to be threaded, no Serborian marshes to be waded — 
there are plenty of these near you all the way, but the track 
carefully avoids them all — smooth, safe, pleasant, even to the 
end. Could you doubt the kindness, the hearty good-will 
of him who made it for you ? Man wakes to moral life, and 
is about to commence his career of moral action. Now 
speaketh God from heaven : This is the way, walk therein ; 
this is the law. We have just given its sum; — you are 



8 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

familiar with its details — walk ye thereby. Turn not to the 
right nor the left of its tlioii shalts and thou shalt nots. Let 
him do so, and he will never know a single feeling of guilt, 
remorse, or shame. Let him do so, and he will be blest in 
the uninterrupted joy of a good conscience. Let him do so, 
and he will live in perpetual peace with himself, with all 
being, with his maker, God — and float down the ages on an 
nnmingied, ever-swelling stream of angel-like and godlike 
felicity. Behold the results of an unswerving and consist- 
ent walking in the law of the Lord. Do not the tendencies 
of that law unmistakably indicate the source from which it 
emanated ? Was it malevolence ? Was it any thing but 
the goodness of the Sovereign to the subject-creatures that 
he loved ? 

2. The sanctions of God's moral government — the penalty 
that he threatens, the retributions he provides for the soul 
that sinneth, flow from the same motive. It is love that 
hath built the iron walls and kindled the everlasting flames 
of hell. Let us bring this matter to a simple and familiar 
test. Here is a man residing in a region where his dwell- 
ing is liable to predatory incursions that may lay it in ashes, 
and occasion the destruction of the lives of his family. But 
he makes no provision for their protection — leaves them — 
though in constant danger — utterly defenceless. Does he love 
them ? Palpably, not — you unanimously reply^^ But what 
is the proof that he does ? Why, that he has surrounded 
his dwelling with barricades amply provided with imple- 
ments of defence, threatening death to every lawless in- 
vader. That looks something hke a proper regard for his 
wife and children. I^ow, when the eternal Father deter- 
mined to call into existence his great family of intelligent 
beings, he saw that, from the nature of the case, it would 
be threatened with one tremendous danger. Obedience to 
his law of love was to be the pledge, and the means of its 
peace and happiness. But, in the nature of things, they 
who can obey, may disobey. Where there is obedience, 
there may be transgression. This, then, was the danger — 
that disobedience, transgression, sin, might break in upon his 
great family, destroying the peace, the happiness, the souls 
of its several members. What then ? Was it the part of love 
to leave them defenceless ? Was it not the strictest demand 
of love to surround them with appropriate safeguaixis? And 
what is the proper safeguard of a commonwealth, be it small 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 9 

as Connecticut, or large as the universe — against the effects 
of the transgression of law? Is it any thing else but the 
threatening, and if need be, the infliction of appropriate pen- 
alties for its violation ? Is it not equally manifest, that im- 
punity to the individual transgressor were cruelty to his uni- 
versal kingdom, as that love for the latter prescribed the 
launching of the vindictive bolt against the former ? 

3. The work of redemption was a work of love. We say 
this, but of course shall not try to prove it. We would as 
soon attempt to prove that the light by which we see each 
other's faces comes, not from the dark bowels of the earth, 
but from the sun in heaven. In the land of gold you have to 
dig down, more or less, in some places, to find the precious 
metal. In others it lies, in its unmistakable brightness, on 
the very surface. So, if you will allow me to associate with 
Jehovah a term which was once applied to one of his earth- 
ly shadows, the golden-hearted love of God which is at the 
bottom of all his doings, but not always apparent at first 
sight, here comes right out to the surface, and meets and 
dazzles your eye at the first glance. Any doubt of the mo- 
tive of the king who restores to life the fallen invaders of his 
realm, by robbing his own veins of life-blood to supply 
theirs ? Any doubt of the motive of the judge who saves 
the criminal he has sentenced to the scafibld, by going there 
in his place ? As little can you doubt the motive of what 
goes far beyond these impossibilities — the voluntary self- 
substitution of a victim-God, to unvictimize the guilty : the 
voluntary shedding of the blood of God to drown the death- 
doom of his own rebellious subjects in. 

God is worthy of universal love. Does any gainsay this 
proposition ? He who does nothing, plans nothing, except 
from the most endearing and delightful impulse that ever 
animated an intelligent heart — who can withhold his own 
from him ? He who brought you into existence from the 
kind desire to add one more happy creature to the universe 
of being ; he who daily loadeth you with benefactions which 
are the drippings of a heart of love, and whose chastisements 
are but the afiectionate strokes of parental faithfulness ; he 
w^ho hath manifested his love in the law he hath placed you 
under, which will make all its subjects happy as angels if 
they only keep it ; he who hath manifested that love no less 
in protecting from violation that safeguard of universal weal 
by vindictive penalties, and who hath still more signally ap- 



10 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

proved his love towards iis in that while we were yet ene- 
mies, transgressors of his law in spite of its penalty, Christ 
died to save us from it ; oh, say, dear hearer ! is not this a 
God to be loved? Is it not fit that his very name should 
set thy heart a-throbbing with intense emotion, and that the 
deepest affection that you cherish for whatever else, should 
be cold as an icicle compared with the warm intensity of 
your devotion to the blessed One ? But there, alas ! is a 
soul standing drenched with the effusions of a God of love- 
is the furthest possible from loving him — whose carnal 
mind is enmity to God. Why, then, hate thyself Could 
you do otherwise by one who stood similarly affected to- 
wards the kind and loving human parent who gave him 
being, and gives him protection, support, all the means of 
earthly happiness he has ? Could you help loathing the un- 
natural spirit that stood scowling in rebel enmity at such a 
parent ? Why, then, loathe thyself, thou child of an Eternal 
Parent, that thou hast rebelled against. View the blessed 
Jehovah in the brightness and beauty of his love-compacted 
nature, and how fit that the whole universe should break out 
in one anthem of devotion, that every thing that hath breath 
should praise and love the Lord ! Shall thy heart exhibit a 
frightful discord in that concert of love, and echo with noth- 
ing but rebel hate? Oh, seek out some solitude, away 
from every thing but God, and let him, the maker and guar- 
dian of thy being, the sovereign and saviour of thy soul, 
arise before thee, endearing in every character, nothing but 
love in all, till the awakened emotions of a broken heart well 
up to thy eyes in tears of sorrow and to thy lips in the self- 
condemning sentence : I have heard of thee by the hearing 
of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee, thou glorious and 
all-matchless Love, wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in 
dust and ashes ! 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 11 



*'//^ which are some things hard to he understood,^'' — 2 Pet. iii. 16. 

The admission which Peter here makes respecting the 
writings of his fellow-apostle, that they contain mysteries — 
things hard to be understood — has been tortured into an 
objection to the whole word of God, and thus has proved a 
rock on which it is to be feared the souls of multitudes have 
been wrecked. They have taken up this book with a view 
to study the character of God, and the relations which he 
sustains to them, — but finding some things there hard to be 
understood, they have rejected the whole, and lived in the 
darkness of error, and died under the penalty of those who 
are wilfully destitute of the knowledge of God. They ap- 
proach the sublime structure of revelation. The beautiful 
symmetry and harmony of its proportions are gradually un- 
folded to their sight, and they are just about to enter and 
hold communion with the Spirit of Eternal Truth that pre- 
sides within, when lo, this same bugbear mystery meets them 
at the door, and they flee away in disgust, and choose rather 
to believe nothing than attempt to believe what they cannot 
fully comprehend. Because they have discovered certain 
mysterious spots in the bright sun of revelation, they refuse 
altogether to be guided by its light, and hide themselves 
from its beams by plunging into the dark valley of the 
shadow of skepticism. 

So too, no doubt, many a sinner whose eyes have just been 
unsealed by the convicting Spirit of God, whose conscience, 
awoke by the pressing realities of the world to come, is urging 
him to flee from the city of destruction, — while the ambassa- 
dor of God has unfolded to him the plan of redeeming grace, 
and assured him that nothing is wanting but the hand of 
faith to lay hold on this gracious plan and interpose it be- 
tween his guilty soul and the demands of divine justice, — no 
doubt, the Tempter, personally or by his emissaries, has sug- 
gested to him that it is perfectly unreasonable and absurd, 
that it requires him to stand where there is nothing to stand 
upon, to believe where there are no data on which to found 
belief ; in a word, to exercise faith in a scheme of atonement 
which is full of unintelligible mysteries. And the sinner who 
but just now was almost persuaded to be a Christian, at once 



12 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

takes refuge under the conceit, that it is vain to attempt to 
do what is impossible, that it is vain to try to beheve what 
is incomprehensible, and with this flattering unction he calms 
his wounded conscience, and with this buckler of defence, he 
fortifies himself against the sword of the Spirit and the 
arrows of the Almighty, and Avhile the arms of a gracious 
Saviour are opening to receive him, he drawls back from his 
embrace, and draws back into perdition. The idea of being 
required to believe what he cannot undel'stand, drives him 
away from Jesus, aw\ay from repentance, and away from 
heaven. In pursuing the subject, w^e observe : 

I. The writings of Paul not only, but of Moses, of David, 
of Isaiah, in short, every part of the word of God, contains 
things hard to be understood, facts and doctrines which, in 
a greater or less degree, are beyond the present compass of 
our capacities. Saith Mohammed, with reference to the 
crudities and contradictions of his Koran, These things are 
dark to the infidel, but to the true believer they are clear as 
glass. We make no such claim for the Bible. We admit 
that it contains dark sayings, facts and doctrines which, in 
all probability, are never to be fully understood by a single 
human being this side of eternity. We will specify three of 
these, each of which is the representative of a class, and each 
of them has more or less of mystery about it, though for a 
different reason. They are the doctrine of the Trinity, the 
doctrine of election, and the doctrine of human accounta- 
bility. We believe there is not a truth of revelation which 
has ever been excepted against, on the score of mystery, but 
may be referred to one of three classes, of which those just 
enumerated are respectively legitimate specimens. 

II. Now let us inquire in what respect these doctrines are 
mysterious. What is there in each of them that is hard to 
be understood ? 

1. As to the Trinity. The Bible teaches that there are 
three persons in the Godhead — the Father, Son, and Holy 
Ghost, and that these three are one God. Now the ques- 
tion is. How can these three be so united as to constitute 
but one being — so as to be a trinity and unity at the same 
time ? The mystery lies in this how — the manner of their 
union. 

2. The doctrine of election. We are taught that God has 
chosen some of the human race and not others, to everlast- 
ing life. Now, since all are equally undeserving, why should 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 13 

he elect one rather than another? and in this why^ the rea- 
son of this course, consists the mystery. 

3. The doctrine of human accountabiUty. All things, all 
events, all actions, we are taught, are matter of divine de- 
cree. If then a man's actions are decreed of God, how can 
he be accountable for them ? The mystery here consists in 
this, that the doctrine of human accountability is apparently 
inconsistent with that of the divine decrees. 

III. Whatever of mystery attaches to these doctrines, 
affords no reason why we should not believe them. For, 
observe : 

1. In neither case are we obliged to believe what w^e do 
not understand. As to the Trinity, the mystery is, how 
those three divine persons are so united as to constitute one 
God. But as to the manner of their union, w^e believe noth- 
ing, because we know nothing. It is only the fact that they 
are thus united that we are required to believe. So as to 
election. Here the mystery is. Why does God choose some 
to salvation and not others? But as to this, we believe 
nothing. It is only the fact that he does thus choose that 
w^e are required to believe. As to the doctrine of human 
accountability, what is hard to be understood is, how it is 
reconcilable with the decrees of God. Various, and, as we 
think, successful attempts have been made to reconcile them. 
To my mind, they present no inconsistency or incongruity 
whatever. But granting, for the present, that aU such at- 
tempts to reconcile them have failed, then all we are required 
to believe is, that the decrees of God extend to all things, 
events, and actions, and that men are accountable for all 
their actions. So, then, as to what we cannot understand, 
we believe nothing. But in the one case we believe a fact, 
of which we do not understand the mode and manner ; in 
the second place, we believe a fact of which we cannot un- 
derstand the cause and reason ; and in the third place, we 
believe a fact whose consistency with another fact we cannot 
comprehend. 

2. Now the question is. Is it irrational to believe, to exer- 
cise faith under such circumstances ? And the answer is. We 
do believe, we do exercise faith under precisely such circum- 
stances every day we live. We every day of our lives meet 
with things, facts, phenomena, which we are more or less 
unable to understand. In truth, there is no fact, no phe- 
nomenon of nature that w^e understand perfectlv. In every 

2 



'14 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

case, we can trace a certain chain of causes to a certain ex- 
tent, but at length we come to a point where we are obliged 
to confess that we know nothing. Two invisible substances, 
the one a combustible, the other a supporter of combustion, 
and each as unlike water as possible, unite to form that ele- 
ment. None doubt this ; but what is the principle of this 
union, — how the two substances came to unite at all, — how 
they are kept together, and why they produce that fluid, — 
as to those things we know nothing at all, except that such 
is the law of nature. Again, we see a sprout shooting up 
from the surface of the earth and gradually becoming a tree. 
But why does it grow? It is owing to the joint influence 
of the sun and the soil and the rain. But why do they pro- 
duce this effect ? We know not ; only that such is a law of 
nature. But now let us present you with an example which 
has all the appearance of a flagrant inconsistency with one of 
the laws of nature. You have all observed the contracting 
effects of cold. With one exception, you have observed that 
all substances, while they are expanded — made larger — by 
heat ; are contracted — made smaller — by cold. Yet, as re- 
gards water, the fact is just the opposite. Water, when 
congealed to ice, occupies more space than in its fluid state. 
Cold expands it. Now, till within a recent period, no hu- 
man being could offer a word in explanation of this, and the 
only explanation of it which millions now can give, is, that 
nature admits an exception and a contradiction to her own 
law. And yet we believe it. 

But we need not go into further particulars. The world 
is full of phenomena, respecting which we can only say that 
they are so^ and that such is the law of nature, and yet we 
believe them. Now what is a law of nature but a law of 
God ? And what is a law of God but an expression of the 
will of God ? And why do we believe these things ? On 
the evidence of our senses. And what do we believe re- 
specting them — the growth of the tree for instance ? We 
simply believe the fact that it grows. As to why the influ- 
ence of the sun and the earth and the showers cause it to 
grow, we believe nothing. 

Now to apply all this, if it be the will of God that he 
should exist in three persons; if it be his will to elect some 
and not others of the human race to everlasting life; if it be 
his will to foreordain whatsoever comes to pass, and yet to 
hold men accountable for all their actions ; and if he has given 



KEY. WM. B. AVEED. 15 

sufficient evidence in tliis book that such is his will, v>hy 
should we have any more difficulty in believing such things, 
though we cannot explain them, than in believing the thou- 
sand phenomena of nature, which yet we do believe on suffi- 
cient evidence, though we can do nothing towards explain- 
ing them, except to say that such is the will of God. With 
the evidence by which these and other similar doctrines are 
supported, we have nothing to do at present. And many 
reject them at once, and without consideration and without 
looking at the evidence, because they cannot understand 
them in all their bearings. 'Now our aim has been to show 
that we may as fully believe the facts taught in the book of 
revelation as we do those which are tauo^ht in the book of 
nature, even though we cannot understand all their causes 
and relations, and that we are just as much at liberty to 
listen to evidence in the one case as in the other. 

IV. Supposing this book to be the word of God, we might 
expect it to contain some things hard to be understood. The 
works of God, as before observed, are full of mysteries. 
May we not expect to find some, at least, in his word ? Be- 
sides, we learn from the light of nature the infinite perfec- 
tions of the Deity. Shall we be surprised if, in a book which 
jDrofesses to describe the character and attributes and oper- 
ations of that Infinite Being, there are things which we can- 
not fully understand in all their bearings ? Suppose you put 
into the hands of an illiterate person, a book containing a 
description of the powers and operations of the human mind : 
he would not understand the tenth part of it. Or, suppose 
you put into his hands a history of the measures of our na- 
tional government for the last twenty years, could he under- 
stand each measure in all its relations to the great interests 
of the country ? He could do no such thing. And shall we, 
between whom and the great Creator there is an intellectual 
disparity immeasurably greater than between the most illit- 
erate of our citizens and the wisest of our statesmen, shall 
we expect to be able, with the glow-worm light of our feeble 
capacities, to fathom the depths and comprehend, in all their 
length and breadth, the operations of that Infinite Mind ? 
No ; on the other hand, if in that book, which professes to de- 
scribe the nature, the character, the attributes, the ways, the 
plans, and counsels of the Eternal God ; of him in whose 
works around us we see so many Avonders and mysteries, so 
many indi*cations of a mind unsearchable and past finding 



16 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

out, — if in that book we found every thing level to the meas- 
ure of our capacities, we should have every reason to doubt 
its genuineness ; for w^e should do so in a corresponding 
case, where a mind of our own species was concerned. If 
we knew a man who, by his discoveries and investigations 
in science, had attained a rank among the foremost of his 
age, and if we were shown a book with his name on the 
title-page, but which we find, on examination, that the merest 
ignoramus might have written, and bearing no trace of the 
depth of thought and grasp of intellect which we knew to 
belong to its reputed author, no one could ever make us be- 
lieve that he wrote it. We expect a man's writings to par- 
take of the character of his mind. Shall we wonder if a 
book, inspired by the Infinite and Etei*nal Mind, exhibits 
something of the infinity and incomi^rehensibility of His? 
We should wonder if it did not. 

V. But, after all, it has been asked, Why should God permit 
the volume of his inspiration to contain so many dark say- 
ings ? Of what practical use can it be to give us a revela- 
tion, so much of which is beyond our comprehension ? Nay, 
it has been asserted, that a revelation replete with mysteries, 
is no revelation at all, but a sheer misnomer and contradic- 
tion. To which we answer — 

1. There may be a great deal of mystery connected with 
a given fact, while yet the fact itself is of the utmost practi- 
cal importance. To the question. Why the magnetic needle 
points northward, no one has been able hitherto to give a 
satisfactory answer. It is, confessedly, one of the undiscov- 
ered mysteries of nature. But the fact that it does thus 
point is worth millions to commerce, and every thing to the 
safety of human life in ocean voyages. So, without contro- 
versy, great is the mystery of godliness — God manifest in 
the flesh. But the fact that God was thus manifested in the 
flesh, and so became the author of an eternal redemption, is 
as important as the value of all the souls whom that re- 
demption, with all its plenitude of blessings, reaches, or Avill 
ever reach. But — 

2. God permits the volume of his revelation to contain 
things hard to be understood, in order to adapt it to the 
progressive nature — I mean, of course, the moral and intel- 
lectual nature— of man. It is evidently the purpose of God 
that the human mind, like the human body, shall grow 
gradually ; with this difierence, that while the latter, after 



EEV. WM. B. WEED. 17 

having attained a certain stature, stops short, and never gets 
beyond it, eternity alone is to bound the progress of the 
former. Now the food, the ahment which nourishes the 
growth of the mind, is knowledge. Of course, if the mind 
is to grow gradually, such a plan must be adopted in admin- 
istering this food, as not to cloy it, but to keep it with an 
ever-healthy appetite for a fresh supply. And this is pre- 
cisely the course which the Divine Being has adopted. 

(1.) The youth whose reason, whose judgment has just 
awoke to active exercise, looking round on the works of 
God, discerns ten thousand facts and phenomena of which 
he knows nothing, except that they exist. And now he sets 
himself to investigate their causes and relations. And in 
this work he finds a delightful exercise, and with pleasure 
feels his mind gradually expanding to compass difficulties 
which once were insurmountable. Yet, even when he has 
finished his earthly career, he finds that, though he knows 
more than he once did, still he has much to know. For ex- 
ample, all he once knew respecting rain was, that it fell from 
the clouds. He can now tell the immediate cause of it. He 
knows that when two masses of watery vapor, of different 
temperature, meet in the sky, a condensation ensues, and rain 
follows. But why does the meeting of these masses of 
watery vapor occasion such a condensation? Here he is in 
the dark again. It is a law of nature, and that is all he 
knows respecting it. He has much yet to learn, and this is 
one of the considerations which, especially if the spirit of 
adoption has taught him to indulge a filial interest and sym- 
pathy in the Father's works, makes him glad to leave this 
world, where all things are but seen through a glass darkly, 
and pursue his researches within the veil. " I am going," 
said the dying Leibnitz, " to study nature by the Ught that 
proceedeth from her Maker's throne." 

(2.) Now the same course which God adopts in commu- 
nicating to the soul a knowledge of his works, he hath also 
taken in communicating to the soul the knowledge of him- 
self, his moral plans and purposes, his revealed will. The 
student of nature, on his first setting out, is presented with 
many facts of which he does not understand the causes and 
relations, but which he believes on the evidence of his senses. 
The student of the Bible is presented with a variety of facts, 
truths, doctrines, of which he does not understand the bear- 
ings and relations, but which he is required to believe on 



18 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

the evidence of the Author of his senses. Now it is evi- 
dently God's purpose to stimulate him on, by the conscious- 
ness of his present ignorance, to make discoveries and re- 
searches into the nature and counsels of the Most High. 
The man, as he proceeds, will find new light ever breaking 
in upon him. The things which he once thought mysteries, 
the spirit of God will by degrees make plain to his compre- 
hension ; and though, even to the time when he quits this 
mortal scene, much still remains unexplained, yet through 
etei-nity this clearing up of mysteries will still go on, and on 
liis delighted vision new scenes, new truth, new light will be 
forever pouring. See you not that had the case been differ- 
ent, had his capacities at the outset been sufficient to grasp 
the truths of divine revelation in all their length and breadth, 
and had all that he will ever be able to know of God, his 
character, his revealed will, been poured upon his soul at 
once, see you not that that soul must have been forever 
stationary, with nothing more to learn, and debarred from 
the inexpressible pleasure it is to enjoy in advancing in the 
knowledge of the Holy One through everlasting ages. 

I. On reviewing this subject, we pray you, first of all, to 
remark the difference between believing a fact, and believing 
every thing connected w^ith that fact. For they who ask, 
with reference to what are called the mysterious doctrines 
of the Bible — How can I believe w^hat I do not understand ? 
seem evidently to confound these tw^o things. The Bible 
teaches that there are three persons in the Godhead, and 
that these three are one. How can I believe this ? Well, 
if you mean by this question, how can I believe the mode 
and manner in which these divine persons exist in one being, 
we say you cannot believe at all, because you have no testi- 
mony as to that. But if you mean to ask — How can I be- 
lieve the fact that they do thus exist ? we answer, on the 
same ground that you believe any other fact — on testimony. 
True, this is a strange fact — without any parallel in your 
observation — but this only makes it the more necessary that 
you should be assured that the testimony is sufficient and 
reliable. Only satisfy yourself that the evidence is from God, 
and there is no reason why your mind should not be as open 
to the conviction that it is, as to any moral conviction what- 
ever ; and you would have no more difficulty in believing 
the fact, than a person living in a southern latitude, where 
the aurora borealis is never seen, would have in believing 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 19 

that our nightly skies are lighted up with sheets and streams 
of magnetic fire, — provided he had sufficient testimony to 
the fact, — notwithstanding th^t he knew nothing at all as 
to the mode in which it is produced, and had never seen 
any thing like it. On the other hand, that king of Siam 
who, when the French ambassador assured him that in his 
own country the rivers of water became solid and hard 
enough to bear a man's weight, replied — " I am sure you are 
telling me a falsehood," — in the stolid presumption that would 
not believe, on any evidence, a phenomenon which was be- 
yond his comprehension and outside of his experience, — ex- 
hibited no more than a just parallel to those who, on the 
same ground, with no better reason, and in spite of the 
clearest testimony, refuse their faith to the mysterious doc- 
trines of Holy Writ. 

II. Observe the inconsistency of those who deny the 
Scriptures because they contain things hard to be under- 
stood. Why not deny nature, and deny the agency of God 
in her various works. It is true the atheist does this. De- 
nying that this world was the work of an Infinite IntelHgence, 
he points out the imperfections which he fancies that he dis- 
covers in it, and, in short, every thing in its workmanship 
which he cannot fully understand, as proof that it was the 
work of chance. But those who admit the existence of a 
Supreme Being, never tliink of doubting that in his works 
he hath done all things well. If they discover any apparent 
imperfection here, any thing apparently out of place, any 
thing mysterious or incomprehensible, they are candid 
enough to own that these fancied blemishes in the handi- 
work of the Almighty, are rather to be charged against their 
own ignorance than against his infinite wisdom. Why can 
not they be as modest in relation to the word of God as in 
relation to his works ? And yet many of these very per- 
sons, if they find any thing there which in their view is not 
as it should be, any thing which in their view is not as clear 
and intelligible as it might be, denounce the whole book, 
and close their eyes against the testimony that supports it. 

III. You see the inconsistency of those who, while profess- 
ing a general reverence for the word of God, reject every 
thing in it which they cannot understand. There are multi- 
tudes of nominal Christians in Europe, and but too many in 
our own country, who concede a divine origin and a general 
divine authority to this A'^olume, yet feel at liberty to elim- 



20 SERMONS BY THE LAI E 

inate from its pages, to discard, disown, and repudiate any- 
thing that is beyond their comprehension, or that hath a 
smack of mystery. And this they call rationalism ! Why 
not disown and disbelieve every thing in the works of na- 
ture that is beyond their comprehension ? Why every man 
is himself a pile of mysteries. His own existence is a mys- 
tery. Does he knoAv how the various vital organs, in their 
complicated machinery, operate to keep him in being? 
Thousands know nothing on this subject except what others 
have told them, and thousands more know nothing at all 
about it, except the simple fact that they exist. Why not, 
then, deny their existence ? So, too, the union of the soul 
and the body. Who knows in what manner this living and 
ethereal spirit is united to that dying and corporeal frame ? 
Who knows any thing about it, except that there is such a 
union ? Why, then, not deny that they are thus united ? 
As well might you, as deny facts which the word of God re- 
veals, because you cannot understand the cause, manner, or 
reason of them. As well might you reject the testimony of 
your senses and your consciousness in the one case, as reject 
the testimony of the Author of your senses and consciousness 
in the other. If you doubt the authenticity of the evidence, 
examine it closely as you please, weigh it, ponder it, but do 
not say that the very circumstance that a thing is mysteri- 
ous, hard to be understood, precludes all evidence in its 
favor — that it can never command belief, however decisive 
the evidence may be. This is not reason ; it is the stultifica- 
tion of reason. 

IV. To our impenitent hearers this subject suggests a 
weighty reason why you should be reconciled to God. If 
there are things in his word which you find it difficult to 
comprehend, who is more likely to enhghten you in relation 
to them than his own enhghtening Spirit ? The natural 
man, says Paul, receiveth not the things of God, neither can 
he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But, 
says Jesus, when he the Spirit of truth is come, he will 
guide you into all truth. And so John tells the believers to 
w^hom he wrote. Ye have received an unction from the Holy 
One, and ye know all things. Now, dear hearer, there are 
three things which you can understand. There is a God — 
you have sinned against him — and he has devised a plan to 
save you. These facts are so plain, that a wayfaring man, 
though a fool, need not err respecting them. Well, then, 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 21 

be reconciled to God, according to the plan which he pro- 
poses, and then tlie Spirit of truth will be given you, before 
whose enlightening influences this darkaess and these mys- 
teries shall fade away ; — we say not all at once, but your 
vision, purged by the Eternal Spirit, shall, through time and 
eternity, be growing stronger and stronger, and able to pry 
deeper and deeper into the firmament of divine truth, and 
discern new glories there. As when the great prophet 
travelled in his chariot of fire, from star to star, to reach the 
Almighty's throne, — such a pleasure as we may suppose 
him to have felt, as in the course of that wondrous journey, 
world after world and sun after sun, nnseen, unknown be- 
fore, broke on his sight, — even such a pleasure your souls 
shall feel while, in the disclosures of eternity, light after light 
shall dawn upon you, and cloud after cloud shall flee away, 
till these mysteries shall be all unveiled, and not a doubt re- 
main. But complain not of the mysteries of God's w^ord, 
while you reject the wisdom from on high which is profiered 
to help you clear them up. Complain not that this book 
contains things hard to be understood, while you reject the 
guidance of the Spirit that indited it. Complain not that 
you are in the dark, while you voluntarily close your eyes 
against the light. 



■^^-p- 



'•^Strength and beauty are in his sanctuary^ — Ps. xcvi. 6. 

The two most obvious elements in the visible handiwork 
of God, prominently displayed, either separately or in com- 
bination, in any department of it, are the strong and the 
lovely. The compendium of the creation is power and 
beauty. Look abroad upon the heavens to-night ; scan the 
great universe, so far as it is wdthin reach of thy vision, and 
say what other ideas, besides these two, are the result of 
the inspection ? You see in every one of these suns and 
w^orlds a strength of material Avhich makes them infinitely 
outlast the proudest molehills of human workmanship, w^hile 
every one of them paints itself upou your eye as a glittering 
pearl of loveliness. Or take this individual globe of ours — 
how mighty is its rocky skeleton, whose mere splinters suf- 



22 sp:rmons by the late 

fice to sustain the most massive artificial structm-es — with 
what scenes and spectacles of endlessly variegated beauty is 
every part of its superficial crust adorned ! What strength 
is associated with the trunks of yonder trees, that have made 
them victorious combatants of a thousand blasts ! What 
beauty is displayed in their graceful and symmetrical forms, 
in the rich masses of their foliage, and the inimitable hues of 
their blossoms ! How lovely is the headlong sweep of the 
unbridled torrent — how lovely the bright gleaming and gen- 
tle murmuring of the quiet rill ! What an emblem of om- 
nipotence is the great ocean — bearing on its broad bosom, 
with unconscious ease, a thousand navies, from realm to 
realm, or tossing them like playthings in its wayward moods, 
or whirling them like feathers along its vast abyss! But 
have you seen the same ocean in its hours of rest, — by night, 
for instance, when the subsiding winds had left it to assume 
its normal aspect of a smooth and boundless mirror, w^hich 
the stars of heaven were looking down and beholding their 
faces in, — and did you not exclaim, — could you help exclaim- 
ing, — " How beautiful !" 

Now the proposition we have at present to insist on is, 
that these favorite elements in the workmanship of God are 
exhibited in their highest manifestation in his sanctuary — 
the home, the shrine of a power and a beauty, of which the 
strength and loveliness embodied in his physical creation are 
but shadows and emblems. This psalm is supposed to have 
been written for that occasion when the ark of God, after 
an eighty years' exile, was at length brought back by David 
from the home of Obed Edom to the tabernacle at Jerusa- 
lem. By the " sanctuary," in the text, then, we are to un- 
derstand the tabernacle — the place where, of all others on 
the face of the globe at that time, the power and glory of 
Jehovah were most visibly and conspicuously displayed. 
We need not say, however, how much more cogently the 
terms of the text apply — indeed, there is no extravagance in 
supposing that they w^ere intended, in the prophetic concep- 
tion of the w^riter, to apply — to these displays of God of 
which the gospel sanctuary is the shrine. For, in this re- 
spect, the humblest edifice consecrated to the evangelical 
worship of God eclipses the tabernacle and the temple too. 
There is more of God, more of his power, more of his beauty 
made manifest in that rude log raeeting-house beyond the 
mountains, where the true worshippers of the Father, in 



KEV. WM. B. Wft:ED. 23 

these gospel days, worship him in spirit and in truth, than 
the splendid temple of Solomon could boast. For there all 
that the ark contained in symbols is exhibited in glorious 
gospel realities. That terrible law covenant, which made 
Israel quake to hear it, is displaced by the precious covenant 
of grace, whose terms fall on the ear of the guilty soul like 
strains of heaven's own music; the cross hath supplanted the 
altar ; and instead of these inadequate sacrifices, in which 
sin was acknowledged but could not be atoned for, the 
mightier sacrifice is set forth, of which Calvary was the altar, 
which hath made an end of transgression, and reconciled God 
to man and man to God. Here the whole Deity is known. 
Here, more emphatically than elsewhere short of heaven, 
the strength and beauty of God resides. 

I. The gospel sanctuary is the head-quarters of God's om- 
nipotence on earth. To ordinary minds, the most familiar 
display of his power is that w^hich consisted in fabricating 
the visible earth and heavens out of nothing, with no raw 
material from which to frame them. But of that creative 
work, the last specimen w^as the greatest, the most signifi- 
cant of Almio-htiness. The sons of God waited for that before 
they sang together and shouted for joy. For what were all 
the powers of dead matter, adorned with whatever of grace- 
fulness and beauty which he could call into existence, com- 
pared with that living soul which he made in his own image, 
clothed with the bright reflection of his own moral attributes, 
and made capable of an inteUigent sympathy, love, and loy- 
alty to his Maker God. This is power, such as the manufac- 
ture of a whole universe of suns and globes did not require. 
ISTow let us show you a still higher specimen of it. That 
living soul is dead in trespasses and sins. The moral image 
of Satan hath displaced the image of God in him. This sym- 
pathy for his Maker is exchanged for estrangement, his love 
for hatred, his loyalty for rebellion. The problem is to re- 
new and restore all this, and bring the wicked, revolted, 
rebel-hearted spirit to the moral character and the moral 
posture of his first creation. Omnipotence alone could work 
out that problem ; and never was omnipotence so severely 
taxed as in effecting a solution of it. Milton has given us a 
high conception of the power of God, in the person of his 
Son, in describing him as routing the rebel angels, expelling 
them from heaven, and pursuing them to the bottomless pit. 
But who fails to see that it would have been a higher speci- 



21 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

men of Iiis powers still, if, while that host of angelic insur- 
i2;'ents stood facing the chariot of Paternal Deity, with scowl- 
ing looks and burning hearts of vengeful hate, he could have 
caused every devil in those flaming ranks voluntarily to lay 
down his arms and become a loving, loyal, worshipping angel 
at his feet again. Now this is precisely the exploit, the 
marvel of omnipotence, which God performs by means of 
that machinery of which the gospel is the magazine, and the 
sanctuary the theatre of operations. Through the instru- 
mentality of the cross, through the soul-winning attractions 
of its great sacrifice, through the resistless tenderness of re- 
deeming love, reinforced by the agency of his Spirit, without 
imposing the slightest restriction upon their freedom, with- 
out doing violence to any of the principles and affections of 
their nature, or to any of the attributes of his own, he makes 
the revolted spirits of men lay down their weapons and surren- 
der, not their persons merely, but their hearts, in love and 
fealty to the God they hated. How many in this assembly 
can bear Avitness to the veritableness of this exploit, who 
through the appliances of this or some other cure of God, 
have been cured of the madness, humbled of the pride, exor- 
cised of the God-defying spirit of sin, and — once all hostile 
to him and hated by him — have been made to welcome 
him to their hearts, and found a place in his. They, at 
least, will bear witness that they have no higher conception 
of Alniightiness, than the effecting of this wondrous change 
in their character and relations to the Holy One has given 
them : that they have never seen, and never expect to see, 
his power and glory so as they have seen and felt it in the 
sanctuary. 

II. The most winning exhibition of the beauty of God, is 
made in the sanctuary. We present this proposition under 
two aspects. 

1. That which is essential to the beauty of a complex ob- 
ject is, that all its parts or postures should be in keeping, in 
due proportion and correspondence to each other. Take a 
landscape painting, in which a single object, a house, a tree, 
a river, is unduly conspicuous, throwing all the rest into 
shade, and the effect is spoiled. It may be a good painting, 
but it is not a beautiful one ; that is, its several parts may 
be drawn according to the strictest rules of art, but the 
attractive charm, which harmonious proportion is required 
to give it as a whole, is wanting. Even so a note in a mu- 



REV. WM. B. AVEED. 25 

sical performance, wliicli, however pleasing in other connec- 
tions, is too higli for the part of the tune where it is intro- 
duced, makes the whole movement sound harsh and grating. 
So, too, a disproportionately prominent feature in a portrait, 
or in an actual human countenance, spoils its beauty. Now 
tlie same is true of those objects to ^vhich the divinest form 
of loveliness is appropriate — I mean moral objects. There 
must be harmony, there must be proportion here, or there 
is no beauty. He in whom a single moral property, how- 
ever excellent in itself, is so imperiously predominant as to 
play the tyrant over all his other virtues, oppressing, dwarf- 
ing them into insignificance, is not a man to be loved. Thus 
justice, rectitude of character, in itself is amiable ; but a man 
so full of the sense of rectitude that he has no room for be- 
nevolence, compassion, charity, will have but an indifferent 
place in your hearts. And here is another, all compact of 
benevolence, so intent on his schemes of doing good — bene- 
fiting his fillow-creatures — that he neglects the common 
duties of life, neglects to provide for his family, and to pay 
his just debts. Do you love him? No, not even for his 
benevolence. In view of its absorbing disproportion, you 
call it a weakness rather than a virtue. No, it is not the 
soul in which a single moral quality, like the rod of Aaron, 
swallows up all the rest, or like the glaring sun of noonday, 
w^iiich leaves nothing but itself to be seen in heaven, that 
wears the beauty which commands our love. But as the 
sky of night, where thousand orbs, though differing from 
each other, yet not eclipse but set off and reflect light upon 
each other, even so that character, in w^hich the various 
moral graces all have jDlace, all distinctly apparent, all in 
perfect harmony, none overshadowing the rest, or inter- 
fering with the operation of the rest, — presenting the aspect 
of a fair sisterhood of virtues, dwelling together in unity, — 
is a spectacle of beauty, which, like a resistless loadstone, 
draws towards it the hearts of man and of God too. And 
such, transcendently, is God in his sanctuary, in the gospel 
revelations in which he there displays himself There we 
behold mercy triumphing in the justification of the guilty — 
and where is justice ? Prostrate beneath her feet, or drown- 
ed in her tears ? No, but still holding his unshaken throne, 
upheld in his full dignity, satisfied to his utmost demand, by 
that sacrificial substitute for the guilty. There, too, is in- 
finite goodness, boundless benevolence, flowing in mighty 



26 SEliMONS BY THE LATE 

streams of blessing to all our race ; but that abounding cur- 
rent sweepeth not away the bounds and landmarks of eternal 
rectitude, for the cross, from which it flows, is the immova- 
ble rock on which his rectitude stands secure ; the pledge, 
the guaranty that God may be good to sinful man as infinite 
loveprescribes ; and yet no rights, his own or those of any 
creature, or those of his boundless empire, be infringed. 

And if the psalmist styled Jehovah "the perfection of 
beauty," as he appeared in the ancient Zion, where his char- 
acter was but partially revealed, with how much deeper 
intensity of meaning may w^e style him so, who behold him 
in the gospel Zion, and through the gospel glass, adorned 
with that full complement of infinite perfections, where noth- 
ing is wanting ; where every thing is in perfect harmony ; 
where mercy and truth are met together, and righteousness 
and peace have kissed each other; where stern justice and 
soft-smiling love embrace, supporting in full majesty his 
throne, and yet conferiing its most munificent favors and 
highest honors on the rebels who defied it. Is not here Je- 
hovah in his divinest charms ? Tax thy imagination to its 
utmost stretch, and see if you can conceive a single new 
feature capable of being added to the infinite loveliness in 
which he is here displayed. 

2. The beauty of God is practically displayed in the sanc- 
tuary — not merely in the exhibitions of his character, but in 
his practical operations there. You have heard of that pre- 
cious Avoman who left the refinements and luxuries of her 
aristocratic home to be a ministering spirit to the victims of 
the Crimea, when War, awoke at length from his forty years' 
slumber in Europe, has seemed determined to indemnify 
himself for that long interval of cessation by displaying him- 
self in his most frightful horrors, and inflicting his direst 
strokes of suffering. And as you see her moving through 
the wards of that dismal lazar-house, soothing the pangs of 
the maimed and wounded with her words of comfort, acting 
the nursing-mother to the diseased, bidding hope spring up 
in the bosom of the despairing, and wiping the death-damp 
from the brow of the dying, — say, is she not performing a 
most lovely oflice? Can you help your heart Avarming to- 
wards her? Could the music of that songster whose name 
she bears fall on your ear more sweetly or attractively than 
her kind ministrations of love do upon your moral sense ? 
Behold a type of the still kinder oflice which God performs 



KEV. WM. B. WEED. O^ 

excellency of the powe, th^tf ? ^° ^potent, that the 

charms o^ the loSbess of iT'Sfr^ "^^"l^ S''^^^' ^^^^ 
versy, all his own God fn /l^^ **/?' '^'^^'>''^ «ontro- 

manj'of the sS," thetm" the^hlir Vt 'T- ^'^''^ «« 
temple, and on the SabS to «ff ^ ^""^ **"" ^""*^ i» *e 
meant to do in his tosnel A T "^ ^^ ^^™^'* of ^hat he 
multitude out of the vSusva^fc .^,'1^'^'' ^O"^*^ the 
maimed, disconsolate X^n«;r ?^''" ' ^^'P^*^'' ^'ounded, 
the power anrSacr'of Cod • ^' ''"'' ™V° ^^^*^' ^^^ here 
he hith opened a fruntagfi'i:?'f *^^^^' t'^^'"- Here 

kindly ap£tS:;3,Sr t thf d":- ^^ '' -P'"""^ '•^""'^ "^^^ 
I have no pleasure in vonf. <?1? f/^"^\«inner, "As I live, 
self, but in meTs thvCn.» t i*^'''' ^"^'^ destroyed thy! 
the stronghold! ^e p4S-s o h p^ trTK l^T ™*^ 
som;» to the poor, doubting treS^r of a saint « F^ "" "^T 
thou worm Jacob, the Lord thv God within f' ■ ^^ ,"°*' 
he will save thee he v.nU.l^-\-^ *,^'" ^^^^ ^^ mightj^, 
thee with sinSof tVe^ V^^^ ^V" rejoice^vei' 

things ye are i; th.n .! ''"'^ tempted, "In all these 

and darUtWafflkSn "*lvr'^^^^^ '° '^' '^^''^''^^ ««"« 
waters f will be aS th?"' o T^"'' *^'?." P^''^^'* *'-«»gh the 
not overflow thee wlSn Jl " ^^T^^ l^^ '''""''^ ^^^y ^^1^11 
Shalt not hl^^tZanJS^^^^^^^ ^^^'^-^ 

a mor'e wi^nint^^sLct tST"'.?'^"!- '"^^^^^<^ ^^^^ibited in 
of his home the Sic nes 'of ^"' ^"^P^f"^ *'^*^ P'-«^i«i«"« 
needy, the disconToI.! ^ {^^'^ ^°.'P^'' t*^ *he poor and 
plays^f the d^vh e tood°^ '''' penshing? Are the dis- 
or the divine love LI I' anywhere more endearing, 

sanctuary ? ''' anywhere more lovely, than in the 

It fe^nlt'^tsstti^llv '-n^T *^ • '"'•'?*^°° ^f "^^ «^"«t-ary. 
nances the S. "J'k " ^^^ mxposmgness of visible ordi- 

eloquence ThZ 1 ?T^^- ^""''^'^ *^^ strains of human 
qnence. Ihese are but adjuncts and auxiliaries to bring 



28 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

US into fall communion with the real object of attraction 
there. On entering its sacred precincts, your predominant 
reflection should be, " God is in this place ;" and such a God 
— not like those heathen deities who can be propitiated only 
by sacrifices of cruelty and blood, but already propitiated by 
the one sacrifice of his Son, and prepared to welcome the 
chief of sinners to his embraces with no other passport but a 
pleaded Christ ; a God, not hke the horrid deity Avhom the 
aboriginal inhabitants of the central region of this continent 
adored, who required hearts torn from human bosoms to be 
placed upon his shrine, but seeking to take captive human 
hearts by the endearing exhibition of the sweetest, divinest 
affections of his own. Do you love to scan the footsteps of 
the power of God as displayed in the visible creation ? Do 
you love to contemplate all nature at this delightful season, 
smihng and blooming, like a bride, in his reflected beauty ? 
But within these walls, in the appropriate exhibitions of this 
house, God is seen in a far more imposing attitude ; seen in 
that wondrous machinery of saving power which calls dead 
sinners fl'om their tombs, and transforms the rebel to a child 
beloved; seen in the full harmony of all those attributes 
which make a Deity worthy to be adored and loved ; seen in 
the discharge of that office of condescending kindness wherein 
the King Eternal becomes a ministering spirit to his fallen 
and struggling creatures, healing their diseases, binding up 
their wounds, assuaging 'their griefs, and wiping away their 
tears. Who, then, will turn away his foot from the sanctu- 
ary? Who will not echo the aspiration of the psalmist — 
'' One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek 
after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days 
of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire 
in his temple." 

II. They who have learned, under the teachings of the 
Spirit, to appreciate, and to feel the strength and beauty of 
God, as displayed in the sanctuary, ought to be arraying 
themselves in a corresponding strength and beauty. Hatli 
the might of his grace and the potency of the cross subdued 
thy once stubborn spirit, broken the power of sin, and 
effected a Iqdgment for the rudiments of his own holy 
image there ? But holiness is to the soul what physical 
power is to the body. It is the strength which enables it to 
perform the appropriate functions of li moral being. Now 
do you find that under the appliances of the sanctuary you 



KEV. WM. B. WEED. 29 

have an increasing aptitude and capacity for these functions? 
Do you lind yourself gi'owing in your strength of purpose 
and endeavors, to avoid actual, to overcome indwelling sin, 
to glorify God, and to make this a better world by your in- 
tlaence in it and your example before it ? And have the all- 
lovely sanctuary-displays of the divine character, in its most 
winning proportions, melted themselves into thy heart, and 
become cherished there as objects of supreme attraction ? 
But, as the appropriate effect of this, you ought to be changing 
with the same image of moral beauty. He who can con- 
template, with an affectionate sympathizing appreciation, a 
spectacle of moral loveliness, will find his soul spontaneously 
yearning to resemble, to imitate, to copy it. And if you 
have learned to feel the charms of God, his love, his truth, his 
mercy, his condescension, his compassionate tenderness, as 
displayed in the sanctuary, why, then, feature by feature, 
should they be becoming ingrafted on your spirit, and cloth- 
ing it with a beauty like his own. Is it so ? We pray you 
forget not that the appropriate, the intended effect of the 
displays of God in his sanctuary below, is to assimilate the 
soul to his own glorious likeness, and to capacify it to feast 
and revel on those still comj)leter displays of him that await 
it in his sanctuary on high. Xow God help you to realize 
that effect. 

III. " But I am proof against the utmost efforts of that 
strength, against the utmost charms of that beauty. He, 
whose way is in the sanctuary, has met and plied me here 
for long years in vain. He has come in the asserted claims 
of a rightful sovereign, and I defied him. He has come in 
the manifestations of his saving power, and I have proved 
too strono' for it. He has come in the attractions of his re- 
deeming grace, and I have spurned it. A sinner, he has 
offered me a blood-bought pardon, and I would not take it. 
Covered with sin-inflicted wounds and bruises, he has tried 
to heal me, and I would not be healed. A wretched lost 
one, he has tried to save me, and I would not let him." 
We fear that of many of our dear hearers — whether they 
acknowledge it in words or not — all this is but too true. 
Habitual frequenters of the sanctuary, the God of the sanc- 
tuary is, practically, to you a God unknown, or at least un- 
felt. Your fellow- worms have more power to influence you 
than the Almighty has. To the charms of nature, to the 
skin-deep beauty of a human face, you render a readier 

8* 



30 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

homage than to the divinest attractions of Jehovah. But, 
dear hearer, if you are ever to find a place in that temple 
not made with hands, if you are to behold the glory and 
share the happiness of God in heaven, if you are to be dis- 
sociated from that unhappy number whose life is without 
peace, whose death without hope, and whose eternity with- 
out God — this insensibility to the appliances of the earthly 
sanctuary must give place to feeling, this spirit of resistance 
to a spirit of submission. Your heart must unbar its gates 
to an almighty and an all-lovely God, and bid him welcome 
to his rightful throne therein. Ought it to be difficult to do 
so ? Ought it to be difficult to feel the potency of divine, 
compassionate tenderness ? Ought it to be difficult to yield 
to the omnipotence of love eternal ? Ought it to be difficult 
to strike the flag of resistance to the heart-subduing power 
and the heart-ravishing beauty of a gracious God ? Then 
do it — ^now. 



^^Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities : for loe know 
not what we should pray for as we ought : but the Spirit itself 
niaJceth intercession for us with groanings which cannot he utter- 
ed:'— Rom, viii. 26. 

The leading functions of the several persons of the divine 
Trinity in the matter of human redemption, are as distinct 
as if, instead of being three inseparable partners of the God- 
head, they were three independent Gods. Each has his own 
great department which, in view of the representations of 
holy writ, can no more be confounded together than, in a 
well-ordered civil government, the function of the legislator 
can be confounded with that of the judge, or the functions 
of either with that of the executive magistrate. It is with 
the Son of God alone that the most ordinary student of the 
Bible associates the work of atonement, the plenary Satis- 
faction for the sins of the world, by which the salvation of 
all is now made possible, and of part of it, certain. While 
of justification, — the act whereby the ti-ansgressions of the 
individual sinner are remitted and cancelled, on the ground 
of faith in that atonement, — we think only in connection 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 31 

with God the Father. And not less do we connect with the 
Holy Ghost exclusively, that office- work by which the sinner 
is renewed and ultimately perfected in the image of God, in 
regeneration and sanctification. Thus, even as while Ave are 
obliged to confess our ignorance as to the mode and manner 
in which soul and body are united in a human being, we yet 
can clearly prove that he has in the unity of his subsistence 
a soul and a body, by pointing to the separate acts, exercises, 
and functions of each, — so though we are left almost entirely 
in the dark as to the mode and manner of the divine subsist- 
ence in three persons, yet — what alone it practically con- 
cerns us to know — the fact that there are three persons in 
the Godhead, is made sufficiently intelligible by the inde- 
pendent acts, and exercises, and functions ascribed to them 
respectively. 

But there are certain subordinate acts, as to which this 
distinction is apparently ignored, which are ascribed not to 
one but to two, or even to all three, of the august partners 
of the Trinity. Thus, in the text, we are told that the 
Spirit maketh intercession for us. But elsewhere it is said 
of Christ, the Son, that he ever^liveth to intercede for us. 
Now we are at no loss to understand what is meant by his 
intercession. It is part of his priestly office. The Jewish 
high-priest, his type, offered a sacrifice in presence of the 
people on the day of atonement, and then went within the 
veil and offered prayers for them, enforced by the typical 
argument of the blood of that sacrifice, which he sprinkled 
on the mercy-seat. So Christ offered himself a sacrifice for 
us, and then entered within the veil of heaven itself to inter- 
cede for our pardon, justifi.cation, and sanctification with his 
self-offered blood for argument and plea. But what is meant 
by the intercession of the Spirit ? What are the definite 
ideas it includes, and the practical uses it embodies? It will 
be the aim of this discourse to answer these questions. 

I. For the right understanding of what is meant by the 
intercession of the Spirit. Observe: 

1 . In the great empire of which Paul and those to whom 
he addressed this epistle were citizens, an advocate or inter- 
cessor, who acted in behalf of another before the public 
authorities or tribunals, had two different vocations. In 
Rome, in Italy, and generally throughout the Western em- 
pire, the office of an advocate was much the same as that of 
an advocate, or lawyer, with us. That is, he appeared be- 



32 ^ SERMONS BY THE LATE 

fore the courts or magistrates, as the representative of his 
client, stated and defended his case, and employed the force 
of legal argument and eloquence to procure a decision in his 
favor. Such advocates, in a former generation, were Cicero 
and Hortensius ; such advocates, in the days of Paul, were 
Tacitus and Pliny; such an advocate was Tertulhan, em- 
ployed by the bigots of Jerusalem to maintain and enforce 
their accusations against the apostle before the Roman gov- 
ernor at Cesarea. But, you remember, the apostle himself 
on that occasion employed no advocate, but pleaded his own 
case. This was always allowable under the Roman system, 
and in the eastern portion of the empire, — in the states of 
Greece for instance, — was very generally practised. He 
who had a matter to be adjudicated by judge or magistrate, 
appeared before them himself and made his own plea. It 
was considered that that plea, thus enforced by the earnest 
tones and gestures of the party interested, would be more 
effective than if offered by an indifferent person, however 
learned and eloquent. But with a view to combine both 
these advantages, — the earnestness arising from personal 
interest and the legal learning belonging to the professional 
man, — the j)arty in such a case often employed one learned 
in the law to draw up his plea for him. And hence origin- 
ated a new function of the advocate or intercessor — to write 
out for his client the argument, the plea which the latter 
adopted and read, or repeated it from memory, as his own, 
before the tribunal. So, where memorials, or petitions, were 
to be presented to one high in authority, — as to the emper- 
or, — affecting the rights, or interests, or lives of the parties 
concerned, an advocate or intercessor (both are Latin ^vords 
of nearly the same meaning) was employed to draw up the 
petition to be sent, or presented in person by the suppliant 
in his own name. 

2. Now this difference between the advocate who pleaded 
in person for his client, and the advocate who furnished him 
with words and arguments to plead himself, makes the dis- 
tinction between God the Son and God the Spirit, as an 
intercessor. We do not offer the aforesaid illustration as an 
argument, but we shall show that the same term, advocate 
or intercessor, is given to both, and that there is the same 
diversity as in the case referred to, between their interces- 
sory functions. And, 

(1.) '' If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, 



KEY. WM. B. WEED. 3 



Q 



even Jesus Christ the righteous." How does he discharge 
that office ? Directly — in person. " I have prayed for thee," 
he says to Peter, — offered a direct petition of my own to the 
Father in your behalf, — " that thy faith fail not." And 
again, to all his disciples, in John xvi. : " I will pray the 
Father and he shall give you another Comforter — that he 
may abide with you forever." That is, w^hen I am returned 
to heaven, I mil personally intercede with my God and your 
God to send the Holy Spirit, whose presence, and whose 
auspicious indwelling in your heart, may comfort and com- 
pensate you for my departure. So in Heb. ix. : " Christ is 
not entered in the holy places made wdth hands" (as the Le- 
vitical high-priest did), " w^iich are the figures of the true, 
but into heaven itself, there to appear in the presence of 
God for us," and on our behalf, as our personal intercessor ; 
just as the high-priest appeared within the veil of the taber- 
nacle in the temple, in the presence of the mystic shechinah, 
symbol of Jehovah, as the personal intercessor for Israel. 
Or, to compare great things w^ith small, the Roman advo- 
cate, standing before the praetor, or the senate, or imperial 
Caesar, to procure, by his arguments and intercession, a de- 
cision in favor of the client whom he represented,^the re- 
mission of an offence, or the bestowal of a boon, — was the 
humble counterpart of God the Son, the Mediator, standing 
before the mercy-seat on high, to prove, by an intercession 
that never fails, by arguments as mighty as his blood, by 
pleas as cogent as his sufferings unto death, the remission 
of their sins, — their deliverance from evil, their perfection in 
holiness, — in behalf of that vast clientship of which he was the 
substitute on Calvary, and the representative before the 
throne. 

(2.) But the Holy Spirit, too, is an advocate. The Sa- 
viour expressly styles him so in a passage already quoted, 
and in several others. " I wdll pray the Father and he shall 
send you another Comforter." Comforter, in the original 
Greek, is represented by the same word which is translated 
advocate in 1 John, " We have an advocate with the Fa- 
ther — even Jesus Christ." The literal reading of the former 
passage therefore is, I will pray the father and he shall send 
you another advocate — that is, another besides me. Our 
translators have employed a different term — evidently to 
avoid a confusion of ideas — ^lest it should be supposed that 
the Spirit pleads, or prays for us in the same sense that the 



3i SERMONS BY THE LATE 

one Mediator does. Hence, while they call the latter an 
advocate, they apply to the former a secondary sense of the 
term ; — for what else is the vocation of an advocate but to 
be an official and faithful friend, and to give counsel, aid, 
and comfort to his client ? Still, we repeat, the third person 
of the Trinity is, in the original language of the New Testa- 
ment, styled an advocate as w^ell as the second. That is the 
primitive meaning of the word translated comforter. Classic 
Greek authors- — Demosthenes for instance — perpetually use 
it in that sense. 

3. Now the distinction between the advocacy and inter- 
cessorship of God the Son and God the Spirit is this: — the 
former is exerted independently of us ; — the latter is exerted 
in us — in connection with the powers of our minds and the 
affections of our hearts. Thus, when the apostles were sent 
forth to plead before a guilty world the cause of their Mas- 
ter, — with which they were as completely identified in heart 
and feeling and interest, as if it was their own, — the aid of 
the Spirit was promised them. But how" ? In what man- 
ner ? Why, for example — " He shall bring all things to your 
remembrance — whatsoever I have said unto you." While 
you act as my advocates he shall act as yours, — quickening, 
prompting your memory, and bringing vividly before your 
mind the truth you are to speak in my name. Yea, more — 
" When you are brought before governors and kings for my 
sake, take no thought how or what ye shall speak, for it 
shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak. 
For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father 
that speaketh in you." Is not this the exact parallel to that 
second kind of advocates to which we referred? These 
fishermen-apostles, when required to answer for themselves, 
or for their Master, before kings and rulers, were not to ex- 
pect the Holy Spirit to appear in bodily shape and plead for 
them, while they stood silent by. But by a direct influence 
exerted on their minds he w^ould furnish them with an ap- 
propriate plea, which they were to deliver as their own, but 
which yet sliould truly and properly be his — they speaking, 
and he speaking in them. And so in general. The whole 
office-work of the Spirit in relation to believers is performed,, 
not apart from them, but in immediate connection with 
them. " I will send the comforter, who shall abide with 
you forever." And so says the apostle — " Because ye are 
sons, God hath sent forth his Spirit into your hearts." The 



EEV. WM. B. WEED. 35 

heart of the believer is the Spirit's laboratory. There he 
performs all his work — there he performs his work of inter- 
cession — by teaching, inspiring, helping the believer himself 
to intercede, to pray. For just as God, in a hundred cases, 
is said to perform himself what human agents do in accord- 
ance with his will, or through his command, or by his influ- 
ence, — ^_just as we are told that God drove out the heathen 
before Israel from Canaan — that is, by the sword of Joshua, 
— and anointed David king over them — that is, by the hand 
of his servant Samuel, — and delivered them from the Baby- 
lonish captivity — that is, by the victorious arm of his ser- 
vant Cyrus — even so — because all the significancy, all the 
virtue, all the prevailing power which belongs to the prayers 
of saints — all that makes them to diifer from a mere jar- 
gon of words without feeling and without meaning — is the 
result of the immediate operation of the Holy Spirit in their 
hearts, — therefore, in the text their prayers are styled his 
prayers, and their intercessions his intercessions. As saith 
Augustine — " The Divine Spirit does not groan or intercede 
in and by himself, as God, as a person of the Trinity, but he 
intercedes by his influence upon us, and by leading us to as- 
pirations which language cannot express. 

II. Having thus endeavored to exhibit the general nature 
of this intercession of the Spirit, we proceed to indicate, in 
certain particulars, the precise mode in which this gracious 
helper of our infirmities discharges this vocation. 

1. By giving us just practical conceptions of heaven's mercy- 
seat and of him who sits thereon. " He that cometh unto God 
must believe that he is, and that he is the rewarder of them 
that diligently seek him." In plain terms, he that prayeth 
unto God must believe that he is a hearer of prayer, and 
will, so to speak, turn away from all the universe to hear 
him, and to fulfil his requests. ^N'ow is not this, we say, not 
merely beyond the confidence, but beyond the impudence of 
any natural man ? Try it, dear soul, on whom the spirit of 
adoption hath never breathed. Assume the attitude of 
prayer ; get on your knees, and begin to address the majesty 
of heaven. Now, can you believe, can you hold it credible 
that as soon as the language of your petition reaches the 
celestial courts, the Infinite and all-holy One will find his at- 
tention an-ested by it — will say with himself, " I must lend 
my ear to what that sinner has to say to me, and must, 
directly or indirectly, award him what he asks — w^ith no 



36 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

more possibility of denying him than I can deny my own 
Godhead ?" No, dear hearer, no natm*al man ever approach- 
ed the God of the Bible with any such confidence. No 
natm^al man ever seriously undertook to pray to the God of 
the Bible, however he may have sent up liis orisons to a 
deity of his own invention. But the Bible-deity, the inflex- 
ibly righteous, the severely just, the awful as well as glori- 
ous in holiness, of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, let 
him flash on the mind of the sinner as he attempts to pray, 
and it w^ould drive him from his knees in a moment, in con- 
sternation and despair. He would as soon think of making 
supplication to the angry whirlwind, or the devouring flood. 
But there are men who can approach the throne of such a 
God Avith boldness ; who, with a full conviction of all that 
makes him the dread of sinners, can meet and speak to him 
in full confidence that he will graciously hsten ; who, with a 
full conviction of all that makes them w^orthy of his fiercest 
wrath and bitterest curse, can ask, without fear of denial, for 
his choicest favors and his best of blessings. Now, what 
makes the difference between such and him who, looking to 
the throne of heaven, can see nothing there, or nothing but 
the repelling frowns of an angry God ? We answer, The 
Spirit of adoption. He makes these blessed gospel appli- 
ances, by which the deadly breach between man and God is 
healed, to them so many felt and practical realities. He 
gives them to see God reconciled to them in Christ. He 
gives them to see in Christ the Lord their righteousness. 
He gives them to see in that righteousness, made practically 
their own by faith, the full equivalent for all their drafts 
upon the mercy-seat. He gives them to feel, in God's own 
image, which he has enstamped within them, the blest as- 
surance that they are born of God and possessed of the 
rights of sons and daughters to the love and the blessing of 
that eternal Father. And so they come boldly to his throne 
of grace. But seeing that all the elements of that boldness 
of confidence, — the sense of their reconcihation to God, of 
their personal interest in the great advocate with the Father, 
and of their adoption by Azm, and of their filial claims upon 
him — are all the gifts of the Holy Ghost and the results of 
his gracious operations on their inner man, therefore to 
him alone, directly, immediately, and exclusively, are they 
indebted for all that freedom of intercourse, and for all 
the inexpressible sweetness and untold delight of filial com- 



KEY. WM. B. WEED. 37 

mimion that marks their hours of audience with Paternal 
Deity. 

2. Another part of the province of the Spirit, as the helper 
of our infirmities and the aider of our intercession, is to in- 
spire us with a just conception of our specific wants— of 
what we need to pray for. We said formerly, that however 
one may participate in the exercises of public worship and 
public prayer, he needs not the less to have his private and 
personal seasons of devotion, because he has his peculiar 
Avants, known only to himself. But the truth is, they may 
be not known — they may be overlooked by him. We know 
not what to pray for as we ought. We read, in the third 
chapter of Revelations, of a whole church that, in a spiritual 
sense, were wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, 
and naked, and did not know it ; but really believed that 
they were just the contrary, spiritual nabobs, rich, and in- 
creased in goods, and having need of nothing. There is a 
great difference here between our temporal and our spiritual 
necessities, and the fiicility of detecting them. We cannot 
be hungry without knowing it ; or thirsty, or sleepy, or seri- 
ously sick without knowing it ; — but our souls may be in a 
seriously sickly state without our knowledge. Some Achan 
may have got into our spiritual camp unnoticed — spiritual 
pride, uncharitableness, selfishness, may be getting rampant 
m our heart, all undetected. The reason is that sin is natu- 
ral to us, and therefore, as long as we are not perfectly sanc- 
tified, there is danger of unc(?nsciously sliding back, in whole 
or in part, into that original, natural state of sin. Behold 
the antidote. Even as the Holy Spirit first convinced you 
of sin, and set you to crying, '' God be merciful to me, a 
sinner," even so must the Holy Spirit convince you of the 
individual sin, the decay of particular graces, or the general 
decline into which you may have fallen, and send you to the 
throne of grace crying, " God be merciful, and deliver me 
from that I" That wretched soul might have heard or read 
the saving truths of God's word to the age of Metliuselah, 
without ever being awakened by them, had not the Holy 
Ghost imparted to them a point to pierce his conscience, and 
a scourge to lash it into sensibility. And if that Christian, 
while perusing or listening to the representation of divine 
truth, finds and feels his spiritual deficiencies, the sins of his 
heart, the shortcomings of his life laid bare before him, — 
driving him, in shame and sorrow, to the mercy-seat to im- 

4 



38 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

plore restoring grace, — it is only because of the pungency and 
power with which those representations have been invested 
by the Spirit of truth, teaching him what to pray for by 
making him feel his wants. 

3. It is only through the Spirit that we are able to inter- 
cede with adequate earnestness for any object which is purely 
spiritual. Prayer is the offering up of our sincere desires to 
God. Of course, the intensity of desire measures the ear- 
nestness of prayer. Hence any man can pray for life, for 
health, for temporal prosperity, or for the temporal welfare 
of those with whom he is identified in earthly relations, be- 
cause these are objects wliich can be seen by the natural eye, 
comprehended by the natui-al understanding, felt by the nat- 
ural heart, and awake and kindle its natural desires. But 
what jargon are we talking, in the apprehension of many of 
our hearers, when we say that the life, and health, and pros- 
perity of the soul is of infinitely more consequence than all 
these things, and are infinitely more w^orthy and imperative 
objects of our errands to the mercy-seat; that the interests, 
the wants, the welfare of one soul, — be it our own, be it of one 
of our family, be it of one to whom we sustain no personal 
relation whatever, — should be a more earnest, anxious object 
of prayer, than all earthly interests, our own or others, put 
together. No reader of the Bible can doubt that this is true ; 
but it is a truth which the natural understanding cannot ap- 
preciate. It is a truth whicli can be practically understood 
and felt by those who have been taught by the Spirit to see 
things in their just proportions, and to give to all things the 
place in their heart's sympathies which is appropriate to their 
relative magnitude. What then? That Christian, forgetting 
whether he is rich or poor, forgetting whether he is sick or 
well, forgetting almost whether he has a body at all, think- 
ing of nothing but his soul, all-absorbed in intercessions for 
its spiritual life, deliverance from sin, growth in holiness, or 
prostrate before the throne, oppressed by the mighty burden 
of the souls of others, of those who share his home and 
heart, or of those he never saw in the liesh, wrestling for 
them with a far deeper earnestness than ever mortal plead 
with mortal, or with the Immortal, for the most coveted 
earthly boon, interceding for them with groanings that can- 
not be uttered, — is a phenomenon which no natural cause or 
principle can explain. It is just the most impossible thing 
in the world that natural man should feel so or pray so for 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 39 

such objects. The only rational explanation is, the Holy- 
Ghost hath possessed him. The Spirit of the Lord hath come 
mightily upon him, and put his spiritual frame in an harmoni- 
ous unison with himself. He sees the spndtual wants and 
interests for which he pleads in the same light in which the 
Spirit sees them, and in the same dimensions. He feels their 
pressing importance as the Spirit feels them. He has the 
same desire, in kind, for the welfare of his soul, or of the 
souls of others, which the Spirit has. And therefore he 
prays for it with the same kind of intensity, often too deep 
for words, and vented only in inarticulate cries and groans, 
not less intelligible to God than the plainest words would be, 
as the Holy Spirit would be, if he were to set him aside, and 
instead of praying in him, should literally offer supplication 
for him. 

(1.) What a transcendent importance does God attach to 
the exercise of prayer ! Why else has he recommended it 
so often by positive precepts, and by the recorded examples 
of his ancient saints, and his Son ? Why else the promises 
with which he meets the prayerful, and the threats he 
launches against the prayerless? And, more than all, why 
else has he given us to understand that any earnest supplica- 
tor hath tw^o-thirds of the eternal Trinity to help him every 
time he supplicateth ; that it is part of the intercessory work 
of God the Son to pray for the acceptance of his prayer in 
heaven, and part of the office- work of God the Spirit to pray 
within him, — the latter quickening his affections, warming 
his desires, and strengthening his faith, and so enabling him 
to offer supplications which God will hear ; and the former 
putting them in his golden censer and making them rise like 
precious incense before the mercy-seat ? Yes, brother, Avhen- 
ever in the hour of prayer you seem to see heaven opened 
and Jehovah bending from his throne of grace to listen to 
thee ; when, with an earth-spurning faith, thy soul mounts 
up to meet and greet him, and finds in communing with him 
the freedom of a child conversing with his father, and feels 
those warm desires in interceding with him for thy soul's 
welfare and for the glory of his kingdom which mark the 
difference between the form and the spirit of supplication, 
between praying words and a praying heart, — then be sure 
the blest Comforter is nigh, his gracious power hath purged 
thy eye of faith, and quickened thy filial love, and brought 
thee near to God and God to thee, and tuned thy heart- 



40 SKRMONS BY THE LATE 

strings into a praying harp, capable of giving forth such 
notes of intercession as were wortliy to liave been uttered 
from his own immortal organs. Did not God mean we 
should pray — did he not indicate the infinite indispensable- 
ness of prayer, in providing us in that exercise with two 
such infinite auxiharies? And who, with such divine helpers 
here and in heaven, will neglect to pray, or can hold himself 
excusable if he does ? 

(2.) Saith that best of Papists, Archbishop Fenelon, "The 
Holy Spirit is the soul of our soul — the life, that is, the vital 
principle, of our spiritual life." Now, even as in our animal 
frame, the vital principle is capable of vigorously performing 
any one of its functions only when actively performing all of 
them, — when prostrate with disease and unable to move, we 
are unable to do any thing appropriate to a healthy person, 
— even so it is only when the Eternal Spirit of life is dis- 
charging all his appropriate offices towards us, that we can 
discharge that most precious and indispensable one of which 
we have spoken now. If you refuse to follow his leadings in 
the path of duty ; if in thy hardness of heart you resist his 
attempts to perfect the image of Christ in you ; if the love 
of the world is counteracting in you the operation of his 
sanctifying power; why then be sure that unbehef is hinder- 
ing him from being the helper of thy infirmities and the aux- 
iliary of thy prayers. He must be every thing to you or 
nothing. He must be cherished in all his functions as the 
Infinite Agent of God's grace to thee, or be discarded in all 
of them. Be every thing to us, then, blest Comforter ! Break 
through our hardness of heart, and unbelief, and worldliness, 
and make us to welcome thee in all thy offices — to follow thy 
leadings, to five in the Spirit, to work in the Spirit, and so 
to pray in the Spirit, till God shall hear, and all intercessions 
become to us, and to all they are capable of reaching, the 
seeds of life eternal ! 



KEY. WM. B. WEED. 41 



^'And there was a ramhow round about the throner — Rev. iv. 3. 

Great complaint has been made against the book from 
Vvhich the text is taken, on the score of its obscurity. And 
no doubt there are many things contained in it whose true 
import the course of events in the distant future shall alone 
unfold, and which must remain to us, and probably to all 
mankind for many generations to come, a spi'ing shut up 
and a fountain sealed. For the greater part of this book is 
made up of predictions of the state and history of the Church 
to the end of time. Xovv, it is no part of God's purpose to 
tear open the veil of futurity, so far as the events of this 
world are concerned, and show to mankind the secret things 
beyond it. The future he claims exclusively for himself; the 
present, and the present only, he gives to man. Therefore, 
the predictions contained in his word are invariably so ob- 
scure as to afford to men no certain clue w^hereby to pene- 
trate into the future, and yet so clear that, when fulfilled, 
their signiiicancy is seen at once, and proves the book which 
contains them to have been inspired by him to whom alone 
the womb of the future is palpable as the events of the past ; 
— this being the great reason why this book abounds so much 
w^ith the spirit of prophecy — to establish its divine authenti- 
city. Now the predictions in this book of Revelation were 
intended to extend the argument from prophecy in favor of 
the divine authority of the Scriptures down to the end of the 
w^orld. Obscure as they are to us, because they are yet to 
be fulfilled, yet the successive fulfilment of each, from time 
to time, will add a new bulwark of evidence to the precious 
truth that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God. And 
in the mean time, to reconcile us at least to the obscurity 
which we find here, let us consider that the great object of 
Scripture is not to make us speculatively w'iser, but practi- 
cally better ; not to gratify our curiosity, but to improve our 
hearts ; and that, so far as this last volume of Scripture is 
intended to subserve the latter puriDose, it is just as clear and 
intelligible as any other part of it. The prophetic parts of 
this book, if they were clothed in language as plain as noon- 
day, giving the time and place when and Avhere every event 
foretold w^as to transpire, w^hat good would it do ? As to 

4* 



42 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

believers, it would only gratify their curiosity; and as to un- 
believers, they would scoff as loudly as ever, and deny that 
the events predicted would ever take place. Nothing can 
stop their mouths but the fulfilment of these predictions, 
and the time for that is not yet come. 

But, on the other hand, there is nothing enigmatical, there 
is nothing unintelligible in that portion of this book which 
was intended to convey rehgious instruction, and admoni- 
tion, and encouragement, and hope. Here the veil of mys- 
tery is flung aside, and he who runs may read, and under- 
stand, and profit. The instructions which the Eternal Spirit 
gave to the seven churches of Asia can be understood and 
felt, without an interpreter, by the churches over which his 
watchful guardianship is extended. The sinner has only to 
be honest with his conscience, and it will understand and feel 
the denunciations of the wrath of God and the Lamb, as 
they are thundered from this book, as forcibly as from any 
other quarter. But more particularly (and this is my prin- 
cipal motive for prefacing this subject with these remarks) I 
desire you to observe that, whereas the chief cause of the ob- 
scurity which is found in the prophecies of this book arises 
from the highly figurative nature of the language used, yet, 
wherever this writer clothes a practical topic in figurative 
language, you find that tlie figure, the allusion, needs no 
Daniel nor Joseph to interpret it. You see its reference at 
once — all showing that while, in relation to many matters of 
mere knowledge, God expects us to be content with our ig- 
norance, and to wait his own time to unfold, to explain, to 
clear them up, yet whatsoever the present practical good of 
our souls requires is given as abundant as the rains of heaven, 
and as clear as its air or light. I remark, then — 

I. The language of the text has a clear i-eference to God's 
covenant with Noah. When God called back the waters of 
the deluge he made a promise, and bound himself by cove- 
nant that he would not again destroy the earth by water, 
and, in token of his faithfulness, set his bow in the clouds. 
In allusion to this, God's throne of grace, or mercy-seat, from 
which all the promises of the covenant proceed, is said to be 
surrounded by a rainbow, to signify that God deals with his 
people in the way of covenant. We are then to regard the 
covenant made with Noah, of which the natural rainbow was 
the appointed sign, as illustrating the nature and security of 
the covenant of grace, of which the rainbow round about the 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 43 

throne of grace is the confirming sign. This will appear 
more fully as we proceed. 

II. Let us consider the similarity of the occasions which 
gave birth to these covenants. Fifteen hundred years of sin 
had so provoked the Maker of this world, that he determined 
to sweep away its polluted inhabitants, and cleanse the earth 
from its pollutions, by a universal flood. But a more terrible 
deluge broke upon this world in the days of Adam. Suppose 
a spirit from another world had been hovering over this, im- 
mediately after the first' transgression, and before the promise 
of the Seed of the woman had been given, what is the spec- 
tacle which he would have witnessed ? Even as in the days 
of ISToah the fountains of the great deep were broken up and 
the windows of heaven were opened, so he would have seen 
the depths of the bottomless pit broken up, and sin and death 
issuing forth to take possession of this forfeited world and 
whelm its inhabitants with a flood of evil, and suflfering, and 
ruin ; while from the opened windows of heaven he would 
have seen the curse of God descending, which the prophet 
Isaiah has likened to a destroying storm and a flood of mighty 
waters overflowing, menacing a sinful world with a storm of 
indignation and a deluge of despair. But even as the mercy 
of God called back the flood of ISToah, and gave that patri- 
arch an assurance that the waters should drown the world 
no more, so did the mercy of our God roll back the deluge 
of vindictive wrath, by which this world was threatened at 
the first transgression, and reveal a covenant of grace, where- 
by an assurance was given to all who embraced it that the 
billows of that wrath should never swallow them up. 

III. Consider the immediate circumstances which gave 
rise to these covenants. " Noah builded an altar unto the 
Lord, and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, 
and ofiered burnt-ofierings on the altar'. And the Lord 
smelled a sweet savor, and the Lord said in his heart, I will 
not again curse the ground for man's sake." Even so when 
that covenant, which shields the believer from the flood of 
divine vengeance, w^as conceived in the bosom of Jehovah, 
the altar on which his beloved son was to be ofiered was bo- 
fore his eyes, and the sweet savor of that precious sacrifice 
charmed away (if the expression may be used) the terrors of 
justice from his brow, and made him look on a sinful race 
with feelings of pity, and offer them the promise of covenant- 
grace and love. 



44 SERMONS BY THE LATP] 

Having thus briefly shown the resemblance between God's 
covenant with Noah and his covenant of grace, the metaphor- 
ical relation between the natural rainbow^ which is the sign 
of the one, to the rainbow round about the throne, which is 
the sign of the other, will be at once apparent. Let us pro- 
ceed, then, to consider what practical use maybe made of the 
information contained in the text, that there is a rainbow 
round about the throne on which the Divine Being sitteth. 

1. We see that God is not ashamed to let the inhabitants of 
heaven know that he takes delight in forgiving mercy. Look 
at that worm of the dust, that creature of a day, who has 
received some real or imagined wrong from his fellow-worm. 
" I must have some satisfaction," he exclaims. " I cannot 
endure to be thus trampled on. I should despise myself. I 
should be ashamed to call myself a man, if I did not teach 
this impertinent aggressor that he has a man to deal with, 
who gives as good as he receives." ISTow turn away from 
that insignificant worm, vaporing, and blustering, and svvell- 
ing with a sense of wounded pride ; and look at that injured 
God. A whole race of beings has conspired to wrong him. 
He has given them breath, and they employ it in mocking 
him. He has given them immortal powers, and they employ 
them to combat his authority — as levers to overset his 
throne. He has given them a fair and beautiful world to 
live in, and they pollute it with their lusts. He has given 
them a righteous law^ to govern them, and they treat it with 
contempt. And what says the Lawgiver to this ? There are 
the angels, and the elders, and the living ones spectators of 
his conduct. Does he deem it necessary, in order to vindi- 
cate his character in their sight, to launch his thunders on 
these daring aggressors? Does he deem it necessary, in 
order to sustain the dignity of his character in the eyes of 
heaven, to whelm those who assail it with the crushing 
weight of his avenging wrath ? No, but he hangs a rainbow 
around his throne, full in the sight of all heaven, which says 
to all the inhabitants thereof, an injured God is not ashamed 
to forgive ; a mighty God, who might crush his enemies to 
hell, is not ashamed to pardon them ; an eternal, pure, and 
holy God is not ashamed to make a covenant of mercy with 
insignificant, guilty, rebellious worms. So far from being 
ashamed of it, he glories in it. He seems peculiarly anxious, 
if we may be allowed the expression, that those who dwell 
around his throne should never lose sicfht of the fact that 

CD 



EICV. WM. C. WKKD. 46 

their glorious Sovereign can forgive. If they would be re- 
minded by visible tokens of his power, they may soar from 
world to world throughout his creation, and survey his vast 
and various handiwork. If they would be reminded by 
visible tokens of liis wisdom, they may land on those worlds 
respectively, and contemplate the wonderful symmetry, the 
perfect adaptation which characterizes every part of that 
handiwork. If they would be reminded by visible tokens 
of his justice, they may visit the prison of the lost, and con- 
template its scenes of great despair. But if they would be 
reminded by a visible token of his forgiving mercy, they need 
not move one foot. There it is before their eves, visible 
through all the realms of heaven, the rainbow that is round 
about the throne. And if vou will have it that this lan^ruao-e 
IS figurative, I shall not stop to argue with you. You must 
admit that it indicates that God, by some palpable token, 
keeps the host of heaven perpetually in mind of his covenant 
of grace, unless you go upon the principle that, because lan- 
guage is figurative, it means nothing at all. 

2. We learn here the faithfulness of God. How often, 
since the days of Noah, has this world deserved a second 
deluge as richly as it did the first! Oh! to look abroad 
and see how deeply this world is cursed with sin, — sin in 
many cases far more daring than men could be guilty of in 
those days of old, before the world was enlightened with a 
direct revelation from heaven, — to see the almost universal 
contempt of God's truth, in a word, to see the daring and 
aggravated guilt whereby mankind apparently strive to wear 
out the 2)atience of their God, one might be constrained to 
exclaim, " Why are not the fountains of the great deep 
broken up, and another deluge sent forth as the agent of 
Heaven's exterminating wrath to a guilty world," but that 
the faithful promise of him who cannot lie forbids ? As often 
as a bow appears in heaven, so often have men an assurance 
that, in spite of all their provocations, his fidelity to his 
promise remains unchanged. But even such a rainbow is 
round about his throne ; by which we are to understand that 
the promise of his grace is as unchanging as his promise not 
to drown the Vv^orld. In the person and by the sacrifice of his 
Son, he hath proclaimed his purposes of mercy to this world, 
and his wilUngness to forgive. And what though his mercy 
has been despised by some and refused by almost all ? What 
though one class of men have denied the Godhead of bis 



46 SERMONS BY THE LATK 

Son and the efficacy of his death ? What though another class, 
inchiding the great majority of men, professing in Avords to 
beheve in the necessity of his atonement, yet refuse to embrace 
it, and harden themselves in sin with the full view of a bleed- 
ing Saviour before their eyes ? Not all this despite offered to 
the proclamation of his forgiving mercy, not all this contempt 
cast upon the cross of his Son, not all the daring sins in 
which men indulge, as it were, in full view of Calvary, has 
ever yet been able to provoke the Lord of all to retract the 
promise of his covenant with his Son — that this world, to the 
end of time, should be the theatre of his grace ; that to the 
end of time its inhabitants should have it in their power to 
procure peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 
And it is a dreadful, and, at the same time, a most melting 
spectacle, to see, on the one hand, the race of men, for near 
sixty centuries, by their bold transgressions, provoking and 
daring the living God to do his Avorst, — and, on the other 
hand, to turn our eyes to the throne of heaven, and see the 
rainbow of unaltered mercy round about it still, and still 
hear him, who sits thereon, exclaim : " As I live, I have no 
pleasure in the death of the wicked !" 

3. You all know the manner in which the rainbow is 
formed — by the rays of the sun refracted by the drops of 
rain in the cloud. There can be no rainbow where there is 
no rain. But rain is water, and water is what deluges con- 
sist of So then, in order to the production of that beautiful 
token by which God promises the world that he will drown 
it no more, that very element is necessary which the flood 
consists of Lifer from this the relation that subsists between 
the justice of God and the forgiving mercy which delivers 
from its penalty. The loveliness of mercy cannot be seen 
except where the terrors of justice are appreciated. Indeed 
the context shows this in another way. Out of the throne 
proceeded thunders and lightnings. These are always em- 
blems of the wrath of God. But round about the throne, 
that is, overarching it, was the rainbow; the emblems of 
vindictive wrath below, but the emblem of mercy overtop- 
ping it, and appearing more beautiful by contrast with it. 
Now it is common to hear people say, "I love to think of 
the mercy of God — but his wrath, his vengeance, these 
things, the less I hear of them the better." But there is no 
reason in this way of talking. There is a man who is about 
to be tried for a capital crime. Before the trial comes on, 



KEV. WM. B. WEKD. 47 

and while there is at least an even chance for his acquittal, 
the officer comes and tells him he is discharged. Will that 
man feel the clemency of the government like him who has 
been not only tried, but condemned, and brought to the 
gallows, and at the very last moment receives a pardon? 
He can tell you what mercy means. 

And so he who has but vague, indistinct notions of divine 
justice, who gives indeed a speculative assent to the projDOsi- 
tion that he that believeth not shall be damned, but has never 
felt it — personally, individually, — he may talk as much as he 
pleases of forgiving mercy, but it is not in the nature of things 
that he should feel it in all its exceeding sweetness, because 
he has never felt what it is to need to be forgiven. But he 
whose understanding not merely, but whose heart has been 
impressed with the terrors of the Lord in all their fearful 
reality, he on whose shuddering conscience the convicting 
Spirit hath set home the sentence of God's condemnation, he 
only knows how to prize his attribute of forgiveness. He 
who hath felt what it is to be slain by sin, can appreciate 
what it is to be brought to life by that pardoning word — 
" Thy sins are forgiven thee." He whom the condemning 
law hath driven to the very verge of the pit, can appreciate 
the justifying grace which brings him back to the regions 
of hope. He only who hath felt what a fearful thing it is 
to fall into the hands of a God of justice, can feel what a 
delightful thing it is to repose mth a confident security in 
the hands of a God of mercy. I verily believe that the 
great reason why there is so little rapturous joy and peace 
in believing among the people of God, is that their hearts 
have never been sufficiently broken with the sense of the 
condemning power of sin. Think you that rainbow, which 
was above the throne, would have appeared so glorious but 
by contrast with the awful thunderings and lightnings which 
proceeded from below ? Could the rainbow be seen in its 
full beauty in a cloudless sky ? No ; it is when the heavens 
are all black with the long-continued storm, Avhen the sun, 
at length breaking through the gloom, forms upon the op- 
posite sky the sign which announces that the clouds shall 
depart, it is then that that bow, by contrast with the dark 
background of the departing clouds, appears in all its glory. 
So he before whose sight the Spirit of God hath set his sins 
in order, until he saw the wrath of a sin-hating God gather- 
ing over him in clouds of despair ; he who, in that hour of 



48 seemoj^n^s by the latk 

terror and aifright, has seen the blessed sun of righteousness 
breaking through the gloom and painting on those threat- 
eiiing clouds the rainbow of mercy, which assured him that 
they should pass away — oh ! he will not merely talk of that 
mercy — he will adore and bless it, even till his heart shall 
melt and run over in tears of trembUng gratitude and love. 
For as long as he lives — every time he thinks of it, he will 
think of the imminent jeopardy which that mercy saved him 
from ; as deeply as he felt the former, so deeply will he feel 
the latter. As long as he lives, did I say ? And longer too. 
"Thou art worthy," say the just made perfect. Why wor- 
thy — what has he done for them ? " Thou art worthy, for 
thou hast redeemed us unto God — and made us kings and 
priests — and we shall reign on the earth." The thing that 
comes first and uppermost in their minds is, that he had re- 
deemed them — brought them from under the curse. They 
praise him first for wliat he has saved them from, and then 
for what he has exalted them to, and no doubt the thought 
of the former prepared them to estimate the latter. No 
soul of man will ever enter heaven, or join the song of re- 
demption there, but has felt personally, individually, Avhat it 
was to be in danger of hell. 

See, Christian friends, what ample grounds you have for 
confidence in your covenant God. We perceive the laws 
of nature to be uniform — always the same ; and therefore 
Ave have a perfect confidence that they Avill always continue 
so. And seeing that a law of nature requires that, when 
there is a watery cloud directly opposite to the sun, a rainbow 
should be formed, therefore we have a perfect confidence 
that this phenomenon shall continue to the end of time. 
Now God, as if his word was not sufficient, appeals to that 
very confidence to confirm his promise to drown the earth no 
more. " You believe," says he, '' that the rainbow will appear 
as long as the laws of nature remain the same. And just so 
sure will I never destroy the earth with a flood again." And 
so he has declared that his promises to the children of his 
grace are yea and amen ; and, as if his word was not 
enough, he directs his apostle to tell you that around his 
throne in heaven, where every thing is eternal, there is a 
visible token confirming that promise, precisely the same as 
that which he appointed as a sign between Noah and his 
posterity. Now you, no doubt, believe that God is trust- 
worthy, and that what he hath promised lie is able also to 



KEY. WM. B. WEED. 49 

perform. Bat there is such a thing as a practical unbelief. 
The wicked heart is dreadfully prone to distrust and doubt. 
You, then, whose conscience gives you a comfortable assur- 
ance that you have cast your hopes, your soul, your all, on 
the mercy of God in Christ Jesus — if trembling in view of 
your unworthiness, if harassed with unbelief, if tempted by 
a deceitful heart to doubt what the Lord hath spoken, you 
feel in danger of sinking into the slough of despond, then 
look at that rainbow. It is a token of j^romise ; a token of 
promise to you. You feel sure, whenever you see the rain- 
bow in the clouds, that the waters shall deluge the earth no 
more. Feel equally sure that the promises of your Father 
in heaven concerning you shall never fail, but that he is able 
to keep what you have committed to him against that day. 
Oh, he is a matchlessly faithful God. " He is faithful to his 
promises and faithful to his Son ;" and he will be faithful to 
you. Cherish an habitual confidence, a strong, undoubting 
laith in him ; and through the medium of that faith receiv- 
ing of his fulness, and grace for grace, you shall no longer 
be troubled with those doubts, and misgivings, and perplex- 
ities, which are so many stumbling-blocks in the Christian 
race, but be enabled to light manfully the good fight of 
faith and lay hold on eternal life. 

Fellow-sinner ! God may be a God of mercy, and yet you 
be lost. Let a person go and wilfully fling himself into the 
river yonder. There might be a rainbow directly over his 
head, a visible promise that the earth should be drowned no 
more, and yet he would meet the same fate that the inhab- 
itants of the old world in the days of Noah did — only, mark 
you, it would be his own fault. Now the atonement of 
Christ has caused the dry land to appear in the midst of the 
ocean of divine wrath — the dry land of hope and salvation ; 
but it has not dried that ocean up. There is a rainbow 
round about the throne, but there are thunders and light- 
nings issuing from beneath it. And now he tells you to 
take your choice. You may, by resisting his calls to repent- 
ance, plunge yourself as hopelessly into the abyss of per- 
dition as if no Saviour had ever died, or God invited, or the 
Spirit striven ; — but oh ! what must be the feelings of the 
soul just sinking into that abyss forever — to think that there 
is mercy which he might have had if he would! That 
tliought shall haunt his eternity with a perpetual, remoi'seful 
sting. Resolve, dear friend, that this shall not be your case. 



50 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

Look where your Maker invites you to his throne. Behold 
him hanging forth a token, a pledge of his merciful disposi- 
tion. The rainbow that is round about that throne, assures 
you that it is a throne of grace. And there, in the midst 
thereof, is the Lamb that was slain — slain for the redemp- 
tion of just such souls as you. What more is wanting? 
Dear friend, I implore you to trifle with your destiny no 
longer, but to go this day to that throne of grace, and bow 
before it, and shed the tears of repentance there. There is 
hope, there is pardon, there is justification there ; — and is 
it not too dreadful to think of, can you endure the idea of 
being eternally ruined, just because you would not go there 
and get them ? To perish with the means of safety within 
your reach ? To sink down into despair with the rainbow 
of mercy right over your head ? 



■» > » 



''''Behold^ I will make thee a new sharp threshing instrument^ 
having teeth: thou shalt thresh the mountains and beat them 
small, and shalt make the hills as chaff P — Is. xli. 15. 

My pur]30se is, in the first place, to explain this passage, 
and then endeavor to evince its immediate as well as its re- 
moter application. 

I. Let us endeavor to ascertain the true significancy of 
the figure employed in the text. 

It is needless to observe, that a reference to this thresh- 
ing instrument in common use among us, will do nothing 
towards elucidating the language here employed: in order 
to this, we must have recourse to the customs of the nations 
at the period when the text was written ; though, to be 
sure, the lapse of three thousand years hath wrought but 
little change in them. 

1st. Among the Syrians and Arabians a threshing instru- 
ment was and is employed, which consisted of a stone cylin- 
der, or else of a sort of frame of strong planks made rough 
at the bottom, with hard stones or iron driven into it, and 
was drawn by horses or oxen over the corn sheaves, the 
driver sitting on it. 



hkv. wm. b. weed. 51 

2d. But the reference in the text is to a more formidable 
instrument, and which appears to have been an improvement 
on the one just described. In the original the name given 
it is more definite than in the translation. It means not 
merely a threshing instrument, but a threshing wain, or car. 
Conceive a stout frame, consisting of four heavy pieces of 
timber joined together at the corners, and three solid cylin- 
ders, or rollers, with axles at each end, reaching across this 
frame and turning in its opposite sides ; suppose each of these 
rollers to have around it several circular pieces or Avheels of 
iron, six inches broad, and you have a tolerably correct no- 
tion of the threshing car of the Egyptians, and which was 
borrowed from them by the Israelites. 

3d. To make it still more effective, the iron wheels, of 
which there were three or four around each roller, were 
sometimes serrated, that is, cut into sharp teeth, like a circu- 
lar saw. The whole was drawn by cattle. Above it was 
raised a platform, on which the driver sat. Now, you can 
readily conceive that such a machine, with its heavy timbers 
and rollers set around with sharp teeth, drawn about on the 
threshing-floor, must do very thorough execution ; not mere- 
ly force out the grain, but cut up the straw, the chaff, so fine 
that the wind would easily drive it away, and thus perform 
the process" of threshing and winnowing both together. 

And now says God, addressing the people of Israel nn- 
der the name, as you see from the context, of their common 
ancestor Jacob, " I will make thee a new sharp threshing in- 
strument." It does not mean, as you might suppose, that 
he would make such an instrument for their use ; but I will 
make thee into such an instrument. As here translated, the 
language may mean either, but the moment we consult the 
original Hebrew, the ambiguity vanishes, and we find the 
sense evidently to be — '' I will constitute thee — I will erect 
thee — will turn thee into a new sharp threshing instrument, 
having teeth : thou shalt thresh the mountains and beat 
them small, and shalt make the hills as chaff. Thou shalt 
fan them, and the wind shall carry them away, and the 
whirlwind shall scatter them." Having thus endeavored to 
explain the literal meaning of the text — 

II. I proceed, in the second place, to consider its more 
immediate application. 

1. This prophecy, contained in the preceding chapter and 
in this, is agreed on all hands to have been delivered just 



52 SERMONS BY THK LATE 

before the close of the Babylonisli captivity. Cyrus, to 
whom the conquest of the Assyrian capital was assigned, was 
already in the field, and by the divine impulse of a power 
which he knew not, was meditating the siege and destruc- 
tion of Babylon, which was to be the signal of the disen- 
thrahnent of the Hebrew captives there. And now, at this 
juncture, the prophet is sent to the Hebrew captives them- 
selves to dispel the cloud of despondency, and perhaps of 
despair, which a captivity of more than two generations had 
been gathering over them, and to inspire them with the ex- 
pectation that the morning of deliverance was about to 
dawn. And accordingly we find tliese two chapters per- 
vaded with a continual and reiterated strain of the most 
heart-stirring encouragement. " Hast thou not known, hast 
thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the 
Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is 
weary ? He giveth power to the faint. Fear thou not, for 
I am with thee. Be not dismayed, for I am thy God. Fear 
not, thou worm Jacob, and ye men of Israel ; I will help thee, 
saith the Lord." And then, representing the existing ob- 
stacles which lay in the way of their return to their own 
country under the well-known figure of hills and mountains, 
he gives them to understand, that with his omnipotence en- 
listed in their behalf, they should beat them down like chaff, 
and be borne triumphantly over them and through them — 
iust as a sharp threshing-car subdues and beats down the 
heaps of grain. 

2. Threshing with such a machine, you can readily con- 
ceive, presented a very impressive image of victorious con- 
quest ; and on more than one occasion it is thus employed. 
'' Thou," says Habakkuk, " didst march through the land in 
indignation — thou didst thresh the heathen in anger" — that 
is, crush, subdue them before thee. "For three transgres- 
sions of Damascus, and for four," says God, by tlie prophet 
Amos, " I will not turn away the punishment thereof; be- 
cause they have threshed Gilead with threshing instruments 
of iron;" — the meaning the same as in the former case. 
Hence the text has been supposed to allude to the future 
conquests of the Jews — those, particularly, w^hich you find 
described in the book of Maccabees, which, though not to 
be received as of divine inspiration, is still to be regarded 
as, in the main, an authentic history. Now it is quite prob- 
able that a part of God's purpose in the text was to comfort 



EEV. WM. B. WEED. 53 

his people in their present low estate, by the prospect of 
their future glories; that, though now prostrated and en- 
slaved, the day was at hand wlien, under the guidance and 
leadership of Judas Maccabeus and his heroic brethren, kings 
shall be crushed beneath them, and countless armies fly be- 
fore them ; one should chase a thousand, and two put ten 
thousand to flight, and Israel be formidable among the na- 
tions of the East as a sharp threshing instrument to the 
heaps of corn. I proceed — 

III. To indicate the spiritual signification of this passage ; 
or, rather, to make a spiritual improvement of it. 

1. I just remark, though I do not mean to dwell upon it, 
because I have done so recently, and because, methinks, the 
spirit of the text points more strongly another way — that we 
have here an illustration of the mighty and might-giving 
efl'ect of the grace of God. Take notice that Jacob is called 
a worm of the dust, and a sharp threshing instrument, 
almost in the same breath. The former he is in himself; 
the latter, God will make him. View that despised and en- 
slaved people cooped up within the walls of Babylon. Shall 
they ever march in triumph home ? How^ hopeless the 
prospect ! Can they leap those mountain-like walls ? Can 
they burst those brazen gates ? Why the least symptom of 
a disposition to break their galling yoke would bring upon 
them — all unarmed and helpless as they are — the mailed war- 
riors of their tyrants, and expose them to their merciless 
swords. But now change the scene, and see the God of 
Israel fling his omnipotence into the scale, and see how soon 
it will turn. Israel must return to the shadow of their own 
vines and flg-trees, because the Almighty wills it ; and every 
mountain, and every hill of difliculty and opposition must be 
beat down to chafi* before them, because the Almighty is 
with them. And so, to see that human being setting out 
for glory, and to think of what he has to encounter before 
he gets there ; to think of the mountains of opposition piled 
in his way by the malignant might of principalities and pow- 
ers ; to think of the hills of difficulty which his own unsanc- 
tified, earth-loving, and heaven-loathing nature hangeth 
around his very neck, as so many great mill-stones, to weigh 
him down ; to think how the world he is travelling through 
is all crushed, all ground, all under the power of the enemy, 
who has filled it full of pitfalls of temptation to entrap him, 
and dark howling wildernesses of discouragement to bevril- 

5* 



54: SERMONS BY THE LATE 

der him, and frowning fortresses of opposition to withstand 
and beat him back ; look at him as he is, and say what is his 
prospect ? Why, the feeble earth-worm ! his soul can no 
more get to the third heaven, than his feet can climb the 
blue vault of the first heaven literally. But look again. He 
is more able than you take him to be. Hear that voice 
coming down through the portals of the sky — " Fear not, 
for I am with thee." Look at those everlasting arms, reach- 
ing down from heaven and crossing themselves beneath him. 
See that spirit of power descending and taking up his abode 
within him, and hear the inviolate decree — " Go forth, he 
shall stand in the strength of the Lord his God." See you 
not that a wonderful change has come over the prospects of 
the earth-worm ? The worm of the dust has become a 
sharp threshing instrument, having teeth, and sure as the 
oath of God he shall beat down to chaff any obstacle that 
interposes between him and heaven's glories. Let Satan do 
his worst ; he shall beat him down under his feet. Let the 
world do its worst; he shall overcome it. Only let him 
never forget wherein his great strength lieth, — in a never- 
doubting confidence in the Lord of all power and might, — 
and victory succeeding victory shall mark the history of his 
career, and triumph, immortal triumph, shall crown its close ; 
for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. I pause here, 
having dwelt upon this subject at length so lately ; but the 
scope of our present text would not permit it to be entirely 
passed over on this occasion. And I do love to dwell upon 
the mightiness wherewith the mighty God makes his weak 
children too mighty for all their enemies ; on the glorious 
security, the sure and steadfast pledge of ultimate and com- 
plete conquest over two hostile w^orlds, which the trusting 
saint has in his all-trustworthy God. 

2. You cannot but have observed how often the language 
of God respecting Israel in the Old Testament, though it 
may primarily refer to the covenant family of Abraham, yet 
has a higher and more important reference to the Church, 
the true Israel of God. In that sublime address contained 
in the sixtieth chapter of the Avritings of this prophet, it is 
the house of Jacob that is all along addressed ; and one ob- 
ject of the writer was, probably, to predict the future na- 
tional prosperity of the house of Jacob ; and yet it is agreed, 
on all hands, that his main object was to shadow forth the 
future glories of the spiritual Israel. Again, " Behold the 



REV. WM. B. AVEED. 55 

days come that I will raise iij) unto David a righteous Branch, 
and a King shall reign and prosper," &c. You need not be 
told that this is a prediction of the prosperity which, not 
merely the tribes of Israel, but the Church universal shall 
enjoy under the peaceful and glorious reign of her Saviour 
King. So the strong figure employed in the text, whatever 
its immediate reference may be, yet the most enlightened 
commentators agree that it ought to be regarded as shadow- 
ing forth the sweeping conquest of this world which the 
Church of God is destined to achieve. It strikingly illus- 
trates it, at least. 

1st. In the second Psalm, we find such language as this: 
"Ask of me," says God, addressing his anointed Messiah, " and 
I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and tlie 
uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Thou shalt 
break them with a rod of iron : thou shalt dash them in pieces 
as a potter's vessel." Here, too, the anointed King of Zion 
is promised, under unequivocal figures, and as unequivocal 
literality of language, the absolute dominion of the globe. 
Now turn to the sixtieth chapter of Isaiah, and you find the 
prophet addressing the Church on this wise : " Thy gates 
shall be open continually — they shall not be shut day nor 
night, that men may bring unto thee the forces of the Gen- 
tiles, and that their kings may be brought." Just as Rome, 
in the days of her glory, was filled with the trophies of con- 
quered nations, thus the Church is here represented imder 
the title of a universal conqueror, with the spoils and kings 
of a vanquished world perpetually passing into her gates. 
For, adds the prophet, " The nation and kingdom that will 
not serve thee shall perish." Now remember that Christ 
is the Head of Zion, and that the conquests of a nation are 
the conquests of her king ; and the due reconciliation of these 
two passages comes to this : Christ is to be a universal con- 
queror, and Zion is to be the instrument of his universal con- 
quest. The nations are to be crushed beneath his feet, and 
his Church is the new sharp threshing instrument by which 
they are to be crushed. 

2d. In the second chapter of the book of Daniel, King 
Nebuchadnezzar saw in a dream a great image, of which the 
head was of gold, the breast and arms of silver, the belly and 
thighs of brass, the legs of iron, and the feet of iron and clay ; 
and then he saw a stone cut out of the mountain without 
hands, which smote the feet of the image, and brake them 



56 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

to pieces. Now the different metals which comiDOsed this 
image the prophet Daniel explained to symbolize the suc- 
cessive empires of Assyria, Persia, Greece, and Rome ; and 
the stone which smote the image was the kingdom which 
the Most High v\#)uld set up, which should swallow up all 
the rest, and become a great mountain and fill the whole 
earth. Now take notice, all these earthly empires were 
founded on conquest. The conquests of Ninirod and Semi- 
ramis laid the foundation of the Assyrian empire. The Per- 
sian empire was built up by the conquests of the elder Cy- 
rus; and the victories of Alexander, on the one hand, and of 
the Scipios and Caesars on the other, estabhshed and secured 
the imperial dominion of Greece and Rome. Each of these 
conquerors, going forth with his invincible armies, and sweep- 
ing down thrones, cities, kingdoms, in their track, and bring- 
ing all to the humble level of subjugation, is admirably par- 
alleled by the execution which such an instrument as is 
spoken of in the text, performs upon the heaps of the thresh- 
ing-floor. Even so the universal dominion of the kingdom 
of the Most High is to be founded upon universal conquest. 
The world will not voluntarily submit to it. It must be sub- 
dued ; not by a conquest of carnage, but of love ; — but sub- 
dued it must and will be; and thus again may the Church 
going forth — not with the arms and the banners of earthly 
conquerors, but still to as sure and certain conquest — be 
fitly compared to a sharp threshing instrument wherewith 
he, on whose vesture and on whose thigh is written, " King 
of kings and Lord of lords," will thresh the nations down to 
the common level of obedience to his universal sceptre. 

3d. And now do you ask. In what does the great efficien- 
cy of the Church, as such an instrument, consist ? I answer, 
in its holiness, in the indwelling and abiding power of the 
Holy Ghost. For this conquest contemplates nothing less 
than the emancipation of the souls of a world from every 
form of error and superstition, and to transform them into 
willing subjects of God and Christ. There are mighty ob- 
stacles to be surmounted, there are mighty powers of resist- 
ance to be overcome, before that conquest can be achieved. 
It requires, therefore, a great degree of disinterested love ; 
but there can be no disinterested love without holiness. It 
requires a great degree of self-denial ; but self-denial is insep- 
arable from holiness. It requires a great degree of the faith 
that never doubts her God ; but faith cannot exist without 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 57 

-holiness. If, then, the Church is to be a threshing instru- 
ment of universal conquest, holiness is the sharp teeth there- 
of. If courage and bodily powers constituted the invincible 
strength of the Roman legion and the Macedonian phalanx, 
even so the invincible might of Zion, which the thrones and ^ 
dominions of this world are destined to fall before, is the 
aggregate and individual holiness thereof That must fur- 
nish the zeal, and inspire the courage, and forge the Aveapons 
that are to insure this conquest. 

I. You see, then, the mighty purpose for which the Church 
exists. It is not intended merely to keep up the forms of 
public worship. It is not intended merely to keep up the 
forms and observances of religion within its own iDrecincts. 
It is intended to be the Lord Jesus' threshing instrument, 
wherewith he means to beat down the mountains of idola- 
try and the hills of error ; v/herewith he means to crush the 
seat of the beast, and the throne of the false prophet, and 
break in pieces the chains which paganism, and Mohamme- 
danism, and papacy have forged for the minds of men, and 
bring them, one and all, into captivity to the obedience of the 
truth. This is the mighty work to which the Church is 
destined ; — a work which every one of its constituent mem- 
bers ought ever to keep prominently in view ; — a work in 
comparison with which, trifling differences of opinion, minor 
points of doctrine, unessential forms and observances, which 
so many are ready to magnify into mountains, ought never 
to be mentioned or even be broug^ht to mind. These mat- 
ters must cease to agitate, must cease to divide, must cease 
to array good men against each other, if the Church is ever 
to possess the efllciency and the crushing power of a strong 
threshing instrument upon God's enemies, which nothing but 
an undivided concentration of her energies can give. 

II. This subject ought to afford heart-stirring encourage- 
ment to every lover of Zion and the world. The language 
of the text, as I remarked before, was addressed to Israel in 

' captivity, for the purpose of consoling them in their low es- 
tate Avith the prospect of their future prosperity and their 
future triumphs. And so, to look at the strifes and the divi- 
sions, and, above all, at the worldliness and the destitution 
of vital holiness which oppress the Church, and render her 
unfit to afford any thing like an adequate relief and succor 
to a sin-enslaved and groaning w^orld, cannot but excite the 
most painful and mortifying reflections in every soul that is 



68 SKRMONS BY TllK LATE 

impregnated with the spirit of the Redeemer. But let not 
love despond. Let not faith despair. Zion hath been des- 
tined by her King as the instrument of subduing the nations 
to himself, and he can and he will give her the requisite effi- 
ciency. Even now there are indications that God is begin- 
ning to sharpen up this instrument and fit it for its work. 
The number, we believe — and the actual efforts of benevo- 
lence which the Church is now carrying on authorizes the 
belief— is constantly on the increase, on whose souls holiness 
to the Lord, and on whose hearts devotion to the Lord is 
written, and whose views of obligation to the Lord include 
the duty of laboring for the conquest of souls, wherever souls 
exist in rebellion against God. And true as the word of 
God that number shall increase ; and true as the oath of 
God, the Church universal shall rise from the dust, display 
her banner of holiness, and in a solid phalanx march through 
the world in the strength and the resistless sweep of a uni- 
versal victor — leaving, not bloodshed, not carnage, not deso- 
lation, but light, and life, and blessing in her track. 

III. You see the duty of every particular church to purge 
itself from sin, and to elevate the standard of vital piety. 
Conceive the instrument spoken of in the text constructed 
just as I before described, only instead of the solid rollers 
armed with serrated iron, suppose nothing but sheaves of 
grain were placed under it. What would such a machine 
be good for? Even so w^orldliness in a church eats and 
corrodes away the teeth of its strength, and renders it as im- 
potent for the purpose for which God destines it, as one sheaf 
of grain is to thresh another. A worldly church arming for 
the conquest of the world is an absurdity ; for since there is 
the same spirit in both, it is just the same as for Satan to cast 
out Satan, or for a house to be divided against itself. No, if 
this, or any particular church, is to perform its proper part 
in that great instrument of universal conquest w^hich the 
Church universal is, then must its teeth be sharpened up. 
Sin must be purged out of it. Its dead branches must be 
revived or lopped off, and the standard of devoted, self- 
denying, God-trusting holiness must be elevated. It must 
conquer sin in itself, before it can go forth on the world- 
conquering business to w^hich its Saviour summons it. It 
must be strong in the strength of God, before it can be pre- 
pared to do the work of God. 

IV. Christian friends, are you at a loss to see what this 



I 



KEV. WM. B. WEED. 59 

subject requires of you ? In the days when Rome was ad- 
vancing to empire, — when victory after victory over the na- 
tions had inspired a general confidence that the world was 
destined to be the slave of Rome, — we read that an indomi- 
table enthusiasm pervaded all classes of her citizens; they 
felt, they acted like men in whose minds the idea of universal 
conquest was ever uiDpermost. For this they were ready to 
make any sacrifice ; for this they were ready to enlist as sol- 
diers, or to give their property as private citizens. " Rome 
must rule the world, and I must have the honor of doing my 
part in the business," was the general sentiment. Dear 
friends, ye belong to a kingdom which must rule the world. 
The voice of prophecy hath spoken it; the oath of God hath 
confirmed it. Ye are component parts of that great thresh- 
ing instrument which, wielded by the hand of the Almighty, 
is to beat down principalities, and powers, and every high 
thing that exalteth itself, and compel a globe to wear the 
yoke of Jesus. And now, are ye willing to hang as dead 
weights on that instrument — that it should perform this 
great work in spite of you ? For it Avill, even in that case. 
iN'ay, rather let the spirit of universal conquest inspire your 
heart. Awake to the high destination to which you are 
called, and let the generous sacrifices and the holy zeal of 
universal conquerors approve you worthy of a place in that 
kingdom which is to swallow up every other, and then last 
as long as the sun and moon endures, and millions of ages 
longer, to the glory of God the Father and the honor of God 
the Son. 

V. And to this end endeavor to awaken in yourselves, and 
to inspire in each other, a higher strain of holiness. Am I ad- 
dressing any who, though they bear a name which no unholy 
man has any business with, yet know not what holiness is ex- 
cept by hearsay ? Am I addressing any who belong by profes- 
sion to a kingdom that is not of this world, yet if put upon 
your oath could not assert a single point in which you differ 
from the world except the name, and whose worldly spirit and 
worldly conduct act as a perpetual stumbling-block to your 
brethren, and thus serves as a perpetual hindrance and draw- 
back to the spiritual prosperity and spiritual strength of your 
church ? Alas ! if all the churches of the Lord Jesus were 
composed of such members as you, what, suppose you, would 
become of its efficiency — what would become of the purpose 
of God ? If it be his purpose to employ his Church in the 



60 SEEMONS BY THE LATE 

self-denying business of this world's conquest, see you not 
that you are out of your place in it ? Oh, if when Zion, with 
all her bright legions, shall ascend Mount Zion crowned and 
robed with victory, if you would not then stand charged 
with having done nothing towards bi'inging about this glo- 
rious consummation, but with having served, as far as in you 
lay, as a deadly hindrance to it, then, do we charge you, 
awake from your carnal slumber, awake to righteousness! 
Those Romans, dear friends, of whom I just spoke as fired 
with the spirit of universal conquest, were correspondingly 
industrious in qualifying themselves for it. They had their 
Campus Marti us, as it was called — a field in the neighbor- 
hood of their city, where they daily practised those athletic 
exercises which mig^ht nerve their bodies with streno^th and 
vigor to bear the hardships and stand the brunt of warfare. 
And so connected as you are with that great body which is 
called and summoned by her Saviour King — and more loudly 
now than ever— to a campaign which looks t.o nothing lesp 
than the subjugation of all kindreds, and tongues, and peo- 
ple, let your closet be your Campus Martins ; and there, in 
daily exercises with your God, acquire the strength and the 
nerves of holiness, which alone can qualify you for the ar- 
duous duties of that campaign. For this cause, if for no 
other, seek to be more holy. For this cause, if for no other, 
take pains to clothe yourself with the whole panoply of God. 
For this cause, if for no other, struggle towards a higher 
mark of sanctification. So shall you be prepared to bear 
your full share in the labors and sacrifices involved in that 
great work, to which the Lord Almighty even now is mar- 
shalling his sacramental host. So shall you be prepared to 
lend your full share of efficiencj to that sharp threshing in- 
strument having teeth, which the signs of the times strongly 
portend that the Lamb of God is about to conduct, in a 
course of crushing victory, over the threshing-floor of this 
world. 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 61 



*''' I find then a law, that, when I would do pood ^ evil is present 
with me^ — Eom. vii. 21. 

It is matter of dispute, you know, whether the passage, 
from which we have taken the text, embodies the experi- 
ence of a converted soul or an unconverted one. Our own 
decided opinion is, that not an awakened sinner, but an 
imperfect Christian speaketh here ; but you will remember 
that heretofore, in expounding the grounds for that opinion, 
we admitted that there were several expressions in this in- 
genuous, but humihating confession, which were equally ap- 
plicable to either character. The text is one of them ; and 
therefore, without any reference to the controversy just al- 
luded to, we mean to found a course of remarks upon it for 
the intended benefit of both saint and sinner. In expound- 
ing a passage in the next chapter, the other Sabbath even- 
ing, we had occasion to distinguish between two different 
significations of the word law. It is needful to remark the 
same distinction here. The most obvious meaning of the 
word is, an authoritative rule of action given by a superior 
to his subjects ; but this, assuredly, cannot be its significa- 
tion here. " I find a law, that, when I would do good, evil 
is present with me ;" that is, a law that makes me do evil 
when I would do good. An authoritative statute say you ? 
Of what description ? Human ? All the authority on earth 
could not exercise such a compulsion over him. Divine ? 
But where did he find it then ? In what revealed or un- 
revealed exhibition of the will of God did he find a statute 
in which the Divine Being, — transformed to a more than 
tempter, divided against himself and belying himself, — re- 
quires and commands his moral subjects to sin in spite of 
their good intentions ? It is not to be found. The word is 
here used in that other sense, in which it denotes a uniform 
tendency of any description ; like that of a floating body to 
displace a quantity of the fluid exactly equal to itself in 
weight, which is called a law of hydrostatics. So the uni- 
form tendency of two or more particular ideas to follow each 
other in the mind, so that one of them almost infallibly sug- 
gests the other, is called the law of association. Even so the 
uniform tendency of habit to be strengthened by a repe- 

6 



62 SERMONS BY THE LAT15 

tition of the acts which first produced it, is called a law 
of the moral constitution.. Now, by the law which the 
speaker found in him, that when he would do good evil is 
present with him, is meant another tendency of his moral 
nature, as uniform as any of the foregoing ; an invariable 
proclivity, propensity, disposition, neutralizing his good in- 
tentions, and constraining him to act in contradiction and 
defiance of them. Such i^^ the sense of the text. Now, for 
an explanation of it, observe — 

I. The source and spirit of good and evil in man, as in 
any intelligent being, lies in the affections. There is a cer- 
tain vegetable production which has various properties, 
which make it useful for shade, for timber, for fuel, for cer- 
tain purj^Oses connected with the arts ; but distinct from 
these, independent of them, and worth more than all the 
rest, it has a certain constituent in which a peculiar property 
resides which is an antidote for some of the worst forms 
of disease. For this the natives of the region where it 
grows have made it an object of veneration and worship. 
They venerate and worship the tree because, and simply 
because, of this one property ; not for its leaves or fruits, 
its bark or wood, but only because of the medicinal essence 
which distils from it. And man has various properties, — 
physical strength, which enables him to master the inani- 
mate creation ; intellectual, which enables him to solve the 
problems and mysteries of nature ; memory, which enables 
him to gather his mental acquisitions in storehouses and lay 
them up for future use : but, distinct from these, and inde- 
pendent of them, and of more consequence than all his 
other properties, is the essential good, or evil, which denom- 
inates him a moral being, and makes him worthy of the 
love, or hatred, of God and man. Now the human proper- 
ties to which this prime essence of human nature appertains are 
the affections. A man is not good because of his physical 
power, for then an elephant might be; or because of the 
force of his intellect, for then a Byron or a Napoleon 
might be ; or because of his resources of knowledge, for 
then a fiend might be. Even the knowledge, the clearest 
intellectual views of what is good, though it may be, and 
ought to be, the handmaid of goodness, yet, so far from 
having in itself any moral virtue, it may be the surest index 
of the deepest depravity : for what saith the Saviour of him 
who knew liis Lord's will and did it not ? No, the essence 



KEY. M'M. B. WEFD. 63 

of right, of rectitude, is right affections. Conceive that the 
whole history of yonder individual thus far had been writ- 
ten only in the red letters of guilt. There is not a bright 
spot in the whole book of his life, not a page, not a line of 
it but makes him blush for shame, and hang his head in self- 
contempt. But now, conceive that while we are speaking a 
ray of divine love were shot into that dark and guilt-befouled 
heart, — that dreary, chaotic lumber-room of sin, — and the 
man, for the first time in his existence, becomes conscious of 
a genuine feeling of benevolence to God and man. With 
the first stirrings of that* affection, before it had given birth 
to a single act or word, a feeling of self-approval would be 
put in motion too. We put this in the form of an assertion, 
because it is a matter of consciousness, and cannot be proved 
by argument ; but we appeal to your consciousness for 
proof of it. You know that the emotion or exercise of love 
to God, or benevolence to man, whoever of you have ever 
felt it, is a source of self-approbation and complacency, be- 
cause you feel that it is right, in a sense in which no other 
exercise of the mind, no other exercise of the bodily func- 
tions, in themselves considered, can be so denominated. 
And you know that the perception of this affection in 
others excites in you a feeling of approbation towards 
them. And in this feeling of approbation there is no 
necessary reference to any thing else, either antecedent or 
consequent, as the ultimate object of our approval. That ulti- 
mate object is the affection itself. It is that which we regard 
as constituting moral excellence or goodness. The truth is, 
your approbation or disapprobation of the actions of others, 
depends ultimately on the affection from which you suppose 
them respectively to spring. Had you, without any knowl- 
edge of previons facts, seen Judas reverently approaching 
the Son of God with his " Hail Master," and his salutation, 
that proof of reverential attachment to his divine Lord, as 
you would have deemed it, would have made you think the 
better of him ; which favorable estimate would be instanta- 
neously changed to abhorrence, the moment you discovered 
that that salutation was dictated by a feeling of traitorous 
malevolence. So, on the other hand, the Elector of Saxony 
causes the great reformer to be seized and shut up in a lone- 
ly castle. How hateful ! But he has done it to place him 
beyond the reach of papal cut-throats who, he knows, are 
pursuing him like blood-hounds. How honorable, how 



64 SERMvlNS BY THE LATE 

noble ! Seeing, therefore, that right affections, in them- 
selves, are matter of self-approval, and the contrary of self- 
depreciation ; seeing that our estimate of the conduct of our 
fellow-creatures depends on the affection from which we 
suppose it to flow, and clianges from approbation to censure, 
or the reverse, when we find ourselves mistaken in the na- 
ture of the action ; it follows that here is the source of 
moral excellence, or the contrary ; that good, or evil, is to 
be predicated of a man, not from what he knows or under- 
stands, but from how he feels, — from the state of his moral 
sensations or affections. Such, too, is the decision of the 
Bible, which places all goodness in love, benevolent affec- 
tion ; and all the sin, the guilty depravity of man, in a car- 
nal mind, which is enmity, malevolent affection to God. 
But now — 

II. The affections are not under the control of the will. 
The latter is sometimes called the sovereign potentate of the 
spiritual emjDire, the soul. If by this is meant that it exer- 
cises a direct, immediate controlling power over all the other 
functions of the soul, then we say it is no such thing. The 
affections, at least, do not own it for a master. They not 
only say, " Let us break its bands asunder and cast away its 
cords from us," but they habitually do it. For if affection 
w^ere at the beck and bidding of volition, as the motions of 
the limbs are, then to produce the former it would only be 
needful to exercise the latter. In plain words, we might 
have any affection simply by willing to have it. But can 
we ? No. *' Can a woman," saith God, " forget her sucking 
child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her 
womb?" He answers that she may, and facts prove that 
the thing is possible. But can she, simply by willing it? 
That fountain of compassionate affection, which is welling 
up from the depths of her heart for the little helpless one 
that nestleth in her bosom, can she change it to the bitter 
venom of malignant aversion by a mere act of her will ? Let 
her try. And no more can an existing aversion, or hatred, 
be exchanged for love by a mere act of the will. The truth 
is, there is an obvious analogy between the control of this 
so-called master over the body, and over the mind. The 
will has an absolute control over all the external functions 
of the body. But it has no direct influence at all over the 
far more important internal ones on which life depends, the 
movement of the lungs, for example, the digestion and as- 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 65 

similation of food, the circulation of the blood. Just so as 
to the powers of the mind. The will has a control over the 
understanding, compelling it to fix on a particular object of 
thought, or to transfer its contemplations from one object to 
another. It has a control over the memory ; it can so con- 
centrate it on a past event as to make it pass before the 
mental vision in its original vividness. But these properties 
of the soul which, in their highest sense, are the fountains of 
its spiritual life or death, are as independent of the will as 
the vital organs of the body. We cannot make the literal 
heart beat, or stop beating, by wiUing it. We cannot make 
the affections of the heart fix upon one object, or migrate 
from one object to another, by wiUing it. 

III. Behold then the meaning of "When I would do 
good, evil is present with me." Good and evil reside in the 
afiections, and are inseparable from them. But the affec- 
tions, of whatever class or description, are independent of 
the will. Therefore we cannot do good simply by willing it, 
while our affections are the other way. Just for the same 
reason that James IV., of Scotland, promised, resolved, will- 
ed, again and again, to part with an odious favorite, but was 
prevented from executing his purpose by the insane attach- 
ment he had formed for him, till his disgusted nobles put an 
end to the matter by putting the favorite to death ; for the 
same reason may a man promise, resolve, will, to forsake his 
evil courses and betake himself to good ones, and yet be pre- 
vented from executing his purpose by his insane attachment 
to the former. In this conflict, the will is on one side with 
its auxiliaries, reason, conscience, duty, interest ; but affec- 
tion is on the other, and, stronger than them all, it discomfits 
them all ; puts reason to flight, buffets conscience into insen- 
sibility, and takes the wdll prisoner of w^ar, compels it to 
come over to its own party, eschew the good which the 
whole man beside approves, and acquiesce in the evil which 
the whole man besides condemns. The sinner knows that 
he ought to submit to God ; he knows he will be happy if 
he does ; he knows he will be damned if he does not. And 
yet he does not. Why ? Because evil is present w4th him, 
and his heart is with it. Fast as his purpose of repentance 
and submission is formed, the love of sin marches boldly up, 
and, with a giant's force, smites it betw^een the eyes and lays 
it prostrate. But a still stronger illustration is found in the 
imperfect Christian. We hold it to be a self evident truth, 

6* 



66 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

that any human being who has begun to draw the breath of 
spiritual Hfe, would never breathe any thing else ; would never 
draw into the lungs of his soul another inspiration of sin's 
effluvia, if it depended simply on his will. Considering his 
attachment, however imperfect, to moral virtue, — consider- 
ing his grace-enlightened sense of duty, it cannot be ; but if, 
by simply willing, he could do by his soul what he can by 
his person, — cleanse it from every defilement, or spot, or 
blemish, — he would do it in a moment. But in this matter 
there is something stronger than the will concerned. Evil 
is present with him, and the heart, partially at least, is en- 
listed with it. " Thrice blessed Maker, Diviner loving, dying 
God. I will love thee with all the strength of my soul." 
Afiection still clinging, in a greater or less degree, to created 
good, replies, " Thou shalt not." Her voice carries the day, 
and leaves the man groaning under the sh^me and humilia- 
tion of an imperfect attachment to perfect goodness, perfect 
holiness, perfect loveliness. So, too, however strong his 
purpose to fulfil his religious obligations, to do his whole 
duty to God and man, the power of sinful afiection either 
hinders him altogether, or at least introduces so much of its 
foul infusion unto the springs of motive, that though he 
goes through the performance of duty, it is with the hum- 
bling conviction that there is little, almost nothing, of that 
salt of holy afiection in it, which is needful to keep it fi'om 
putrefying into a loathsome abomination to the sense of God. 
IV. Now what is the remedy for this ? How are these 
wayward afiections, which thus defy reason, will, and con- 
science, to be brought into alliance with them, producing a 
harmony of consistent, loving virtue, in place of the ruinous 
civil war which results from their collision? Methinks I 
hear one say, " It is idle to ask such a question, for what can 
we do ? The executive power of man lies in the will. We 
can do nothing except from acts of will ; but if our afi*ections 
are independent of it, refuse to be controlled by it, then we 
have no power over them ; let them be as bad or imperfect 
as they may, it lies beyond the reach of our agency to make 
them any better." No such thing. Remember the qualify- 
ing term which we applied to the impotence of the will in 
this matter. We said it had no direct immediate control 
over the afiections ; but it does not follow, and it is not true, 
that it has none at all. You cannot raise a crop by an act 
of the will ; but, neither can you without it. You cannot 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 67 

make that valley stand so thick with corn that it shall laugh 
and sing ; but will a single blade of corn ever grow there 
without a human will concerned in it ? The plain amount of 
the matter is this: The corn grows under the influence of 
certain physical laws, directed by the voluntary agency of 
man. So, to recur to our former analogy, if your digestive 
system is out of order, or your blood got low, you cannot 
repair the former, or quicken the circulation of the latter, 
simply by willing it ; but by a voluntary act, an act of will, 
you may swallow a medicine which will produce these results. 
So in the case before us. The agency of the will in produ- 
cing a crop, consists in using the means which, according to 
the known laws of nature, tend to produce it. The agency 
of the will in repressing sinful affections, in promoting and 
perfecting those of the opposite character, consists in using 
the means which, according to the human laws of our moral 
constitution, tend to produce these results. Take notice, 
then, that affections are not a mere chance-growth of the 
mind, springing up fortuitously, without cause or reason. 
They are the result of objects presented to the mind. Per- 
manently isolate, dissociate a human being from the whole 
universe, natural and spiritual, and his affections would die 
out. You cannot love or hate without having something to 
love or hate. You cannot joy or grieve without having 
something to be joyful for, or to grieve at. An affection is 
excited in the first instance, maintained and strengthened in 
the second, by the contemplation of objects addressed to 
our mental vision, and it is weakened, neutralized, or de- 
stroyed, in the third place, by permanently withdrawing our 
contemplations from those objects. 

Such is a law of our constitution ; and it is by taking ad- 
vantage of it that the will may — indirectly, indeed, but really 
and potentially — control the affections. It lies within the 
power of volition to fix the senses, or the attention of the 
mind, on a given subject, or to withdraw them from it, or 
to transfer them from one subject to another. Such is the 
fact. Behold the application. We will give a specimen of 
it in the language of Dr. Whately : " By attentively studying 
and meditating on the history of some extraordinary person- 
age — by contemplating and dwelling on his actions and suf- 
ferings, his virtues and his wisdom, and by calling on the 
imagination to present a vivid picture of all that is related 
respecting him, — in this manner we may at length succeed in 



68 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

kindling such feelings of reverence, admiration, gratitude, 
love, as we were already prepared to acknowledge were suit- 
able to the case. So, again, if a man of sense wishes to allay 
in himself any wrong affection — that of resentment, for in- 
stance — which is not under the direct control of the will, he 
deliberately sets himself to reflect on the softening cii'cum- 
stances, such as the provocatives the other party may sup- 
pose himself to have received, perhaps his ignorance, or 
weakness, or disordered state of health; that is, by an eifort 
of his will, he expels from his mind the aggravating circum- 
stances which kindle resentment, by occupying it with the 
extenuating circumstances which awaken charity, and in 
this indirect but effectual Avay expels the resentment itself. 
Behold the process of moral allopathy by which the soul may 
be cured of its evil affections, and brought to the perfect 
health which consists in the prevalence of good ones — a 
process exactly analogous to that of taking a medicine which, 
by operating on the involuntary bodily organs, is to dispel 
disease and restore soundness. And thus it is that indiffer- 
ence or enmity to God may be displaced by love ; by ab- 
stracting our thoughts from the sinful objects which feed the 
former, and fixing them on the infinite glories and excellences 
of his that awake the latter. And thus it is that every evil 
passion may be suppressed; not by directly Avilling it out 
of our mind, for we can't — but by starving it ; by willing 
out of our minds the objects which excite, and by willing 
into it such subjects of contemplation as tend to feed tlie 
opposite affection. jSTo man ever acted on principles in 
stricter conformity with the laws of the moral constitution 
than he who, when he had got angry, called upon the Lamb 
of God to calm his perturbed spirits. He could not kill that 
anger by a direct effort of his will ; but he could call in the 
mild and gentle image of the Son of Mary to kill it by coun- 
teracting the cause of exasperation, whatever it was. Thus, 
even as the foul sewer, the filthy receptacle, which all the 
wills in the world can never cleanse directly, may be cleansed 
and purified by a single will, through the repeated applica- 
tion of a purifying element, — even so by the power of deter- 
mined volition, reinforced by grace, making the mind con- 
versant with the purifying images of moral truth and beauty, 
and withdrawing from its view those objects which soil, 
befoul, and pollute it, the man who had found his good 
purposes and good impulses baffled by the evil that was 



KKY. WM. B. AVEED. 69 

present with 4iim, obtains victorious mastery for the for- 
mer, and slays the latter, and makes the whole complexion 
of }]is life and character radiant with the glory of prevailing 
goodness. 

1. I have a son w^ho has formed an attachment for a cer- 
tain vile associate, who is spoiling, ruining him. In order 
to counteract that fatal influence, I request him to have 
nothing to do with him, and associate himself wdth another 
companion of the opposite character. He promises to do so. 
Now, if he wnll keep that promise, you see that this is pre- 
cisely the way to reform and save him. But suppose I find 
that, after all, he is keeping company wnth his old associate 
every day, and that he has little or nothing to do with the 
new one, how much hope is there for him ? And suppose he 
should tell me he cannot help that fatal attachment, which 
he is feeding by a daily intercourse, and doing nothing to 
counteract — would you not consider it a piece of special im- 
pudence ? Dear brother, your attachment to sin was spoil- 
ing, ruining you. God, to counteract her fatal influence, 
proposes himself as the reasonable and worthy object of 
your love and service. ' You have promised to make him so. 
Now, do you keep that promise ? Another question involves 
the answer to this. How much of your thoughts are given 
to the old mistress of your aflections, and how much to the 
proposed new master of them ? How much efibrt are you 
using to estrange your mind from the excitements to sinful 
feeling, and make it consonant with those hallowed truths 
and divine objects, from whose cherished presence in the soul 
aflections hallowed and divine are born ? Without such ef- 
forts, all the grace of God, though it w^ere concentrated on 
you alone, could never sanctify you. It is in assisting such 
efforts that the eflicacious power of grace consists, working 
in you to Avill — to will away from your soul the objects of 
temptation, and to will into communion with it the things 
whose contemplation may make love divine spring up therein. 
It is only by such a daily, grace-assisted struggle to clear our 
chambers of imagery of those ensnaring pictures, on w^hich 
sinful appetite was wont to feed and fatten, and to fill our 
minds with God, that the good that was impossible to us 
acquires the feasibility of congenial habit, and the evil that 
was present with us becomes an expelled outcast, a forgotten 
stranger. 

2. If from the former part of this discoui'se any have drawn 



70 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

the inference that they are not to blame for Jbeing sinners, 
we think they must see by this time that nothing can be 
more unwarranted than such an inference. The fact that 
you cannot mal^e yourself a Christian by a simple act of will, 
no more proves that you have no power to do so, in any 
justifying sense, than the fact that one who has a broken 
limb cannot restore it by a simple act of will, proves that he 
has no power to do. any thing for its restoration. The ques- 
tion is, Is he willing to use the proper means ? Are you ? 
The grand difficulty is the power of sinful affections. Now, 
conceive you go to yonder inebriate, and try to reform him. 
" Oh, I can't. I would, but my appetite is too strong for 
my resolution." You look round his room, and find it filled 
with bottles and decanters of wine and spirits. Are you 
willing to fling them out of the window, and avoid the sight 
of them ? This you can do, if you will. This you can will. 
This is the way to reform you. If you will not, it is proof 
that vou would rather die like a beast than live like a man. 
Dear sinner, are you willing to make a resolute effort to 
break off from evil courses and betake yourself to the paths 
of gospel virtue? Are you willing to 'make a resolute effort 
to expel sinful objects from your thoughts, and fill them with 
God and heavenly things ? These are the means of conver- 
sion. You can, if you will. It is only in connection with 
the effort to do so, that you can expect the aid of God's 
converting grace. To ask God to convert you while you 
decline these only means, is like resorting to a physician for 
advice and then refusing to take his medicine. It is proof 
that to be a new creature is as really beyond your wish as 
you ever fancied it was beyond your power — that you would 
rather die a sinner than live eternally a child of God. 



i 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 71 



" In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble^ and 
the strong men shall how themselves^ and the grinders cease he- 
cause they are few^ and those that look out of the windows he 
darkened ; and the doors shall he shut in the streets^ when the 
sound of the grinding is low^ and he shall rise up at the voice of 
the hird^ and all the daughters of music shall he hrought low ; 
also when they shall he afraid of that which is high^ and fears 
shall he in the way^ and the almond-tree shall flour ish^ and the 
grasshopper shall he a hurden, and desire shall failP — Eccl. xii. 
3-5. 

The symptoms of old age, the visible or perceptible 
tokens of human decay and approaching dissolution, are the 
subject of this passage; and what gives it a special interest 
is, that he who drew this picture of the human tabernacle 
falling into ruins was evidently sitting for his own picture. 
This sermon, from which we have taken the text (for such 
its title and the nature of its contents determine it to be), 
presents abundant internal evidence of being the production 
of an old man. Its disparaging estimates of human life, the 
depreciative style in which it speaks of the various pursuits 
of man — the various earthly objects which they prize so 
highly — are evidently the sentiments of one who had lived 
long enough to weigh them both in the balance of a sober 
experience, and pronounced exactly what they were worth. 
The natural landscape, bathed in the glories of the morning 
sun or the splendor of his noontide beams, is bright and 
glorious to see. But its inviting objects, with all their fair 
variety of colors, fade as the sun retires, till at length they 
become a confused chaos of indistinct and uninviting images, 
from which the eye turns away with indifference, as not 
worth a single glance. Even so with the world and the 
things thereof, in the scripture sense of the expression ; its 
various objects of desire and pleasurable pursuit. How dif- 
ferent the aspect they wore as contemplated in the morning, 
and at the noon, and in the evening of life. Objects of 
eager anticipation to the youth, objects of ardent quest and 
delighted enjoyment to the man, they become objects of in- 
difference and contempt to the old man, whose experience 
constrains him to pronounce the damnatory verdict Ox 



72 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

" vanity of vanities" upon all of them. Now it is not the 
morning, or the noon, but the evening picture of life, the 
world and its goods, that is presented here ; — which suflfi- 
ciently determines the period of life to whicli the Avriter is 
to be assigned. In his youth he built a temple to Jehovah. 
In his old age he wrote this discourse, replete Avith the 
wisdom and the experience of years. The former occupied 
him several years, the latter perhaps a week. On the for- 
mer he expended an amount of material means, — gold, sil- 
ver, trees, firs, and cedars, — which, considering the age in 
which he lived, would be absolutely incredible but that we 
liave an infallible voucher for it. The latter cost him simply 
so much niental effort. The temple lasted four centuries 
and a quarter, and then sunk to ashes. The sermon has 
lasted more than thirty-seven centuries, and will perish but 
in the ashes of the globe. The former w^as of no use, ex- 
cept to one small nation. The latter is a boon to all nations, 
in all times. Behold the difference between the labors of the 
mind — especially when guided by a sanctified heart — and 
the most splendid material productions of the hands. 

Now, as in other parts of his discourse the inspired 
preacher employs every other species of style which is ap- 
propriate to a sermon, — the didactic, the argumentative, the 
hortatory, — so here he gives a specimen of that which, if not 
abused by a too free use, is no less legitimate to the exhibi- 
tions of the pulpit — I mean imaginative description. A ser- 
mon, indeed, should never be made up of descriptive pic- 
tures ; that were like a tree consisting of nothing but blos- 
soms ; they should be used, after the fashion of this Avriter, 
sparingly, not for the sake of ornamental effect, but to give 
to important ideas a more vivid impression. Many, w^e 
doubt not, have been led to read and ponder the passage 
before us because of the highly poetical garb in which it is 
presented, who would have passed it over without notice 
had it been nothing but a simple matter-of-fact description. 
But as our object at present is didactic, it will be needful — 

I. To strip the passage of its allegorical dress, and exhibit 
the naked literality of meaning which it covers. 

1. The first of these symptoms of declining life is the de- 
cay of animal strength, and that in these two particulars. 

(1.) The first is thus expressed: "In the day Avhen the 
keepers of the house shall tremble." The house is the body 
— as Job speaks of men as those who dwell in houses of 



KEV. \VM. B. WEED. ' 73 

clay — that is, the soul is the man, and the body is the tene- 
ment of clay, earth, dust, in which it dwells. So, Paul — 
'' We know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were 
dissolved." And what the keepers or guards of a house in 
danger of a hostile incursion are to it, such are the upper 
limbs, the hands and arms, to the body. An armless man 
were a defenceless one. We rely on these to protect and 
defend us from assaults, injury, and harm. And like the 
guards of a house shrinking and trembling before a hostile 
attack, even so do these limbs tremble beneath the shock of 
old age. The Roman epic poet, in describing an aged king 
proposing to fight a youthful hero who had stormed and 
was devastating his capital, Tividly indicates to us the mad- 
ness of the attempt, when he shows us the hand of the ven- 
erable warrior trembling with senile weakness while in the 
act of hurling his spear. Said an aged man, on whom the 
infirmities of life had come almost as suddenly as if Decem- 
ber should succeed to August with no intervening autumn, 
'' Six months since none of my sons could hold so steady a 
hand as I." But he mentioned it — as it was — as a rare ex- 
ception. The once stalwart arm unnerved, the unsteady, 
tremulous hand, no longer adequate to its wonted ofiice of 
keeper to the house of clay, is one of the most unfailing 
sio:ns that the soul will soon have finished her allotted term 
of habitation there. 

(2.) But another of this class of symptoms is, that " The 
strong men shall bow themselves." As he had spoken of 
the upper limbs as the keepers of the body, so here he 
speaks of the lower limbs as its strong men, they being as 
it were the supporters and pillars which held up the whole 
fabric, till old age disables them from this office and makes 
the knees bend beneath their burden. "What animal is 
that," said the fabled Sphinx, " w^hich goes upon four feet in 
the morning, on tw^o at noon, and on three at night ?" " It is 
man," said QEdipus, " who commences locomotion with his 
hands and feet, then walks erect in the strength of man- 
hood, and in the evening of his days is obliged to make use 
of a Avooden limb to assist the tottering feebleness of his 
fleshly ones." 

2. The writer pursues this inventory of dilapidations by 
instancing the decay of two of the most important organs 
of the human frame. 

(1.) "The grinders cease because they are few." The 

7 



74 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

teeth, by an obvious similitude, are here compared to the 
upper and nether millstones between which our food is 
ground, or masticated : and the decay of these, in the latter 
part of life, is evidently placed in connection with the decay 
of bodily strength, for the reason that it is one great cause 
of it. For animal food is the fuel of animal fire — the pabu- 
lum, the aliment, the support of animal vigor. But in ovder 
to subserve this purpose it must be properly digested ; and 
in order to be properly digested it must be thoroughly mas- 
ticated, ground, chewed. But this is not possible when the 
grinders cease, and thus the food, deprived in a great meas- 
ure of its nourishing properties, no longer ministers to the 
strength and vigor of the bodily system, and the latter in 
consequence declines, falls down for want of support. 

(2.) But the decay of a still more important organ is asso- 
ciated with this. " Those that look out of the windows be 
darkened." You may understand this phraseology in two 
different ways. You may suppose that he is comparing the 
darkening eye to persons attempting to look out at a win- 
dow and finding some obstruction in the way which hinders 
the prospect ; that even thus the mind is obstructed in the 
use of this necessary organ, through the drying up of its hu- 
mors and the change of its shape, as old age comes on. It 
can no longer look out of it as formerly — that is, it can no 
longer receive clear and distinct images of the various objects 
of vision through it. Or, perhaps better, you may consider 
those that look out of the windows as signifying the eyes 
themselves. Take notice that the windows even of Solo- 
mon's palace were nothing but holes, without sash or pane, 
and merely provided with a slight lattice-work, which might 
be opened or shut as occasion required. ]N"ow, in Zachariah 
xiv., it is mentioned as part of the plague with which 
God will visit the nations that fouo-ht ao^ainst Jerusalem, 
that their eyes shall consume away in their holes or 
sockets ; which may be figuratively regarded as the win- 
dows of the eyes, according to the signification of the term 
when Solomon wrote this passage — an orifice that is sup- 
plied with lids and lashes, by way of lattice, which may be 
opened or shut at pleasure. Through these the eyes look ; 
but in our latter years with a vision darkened and obscured, 
owing to the causes aforesaid — one of the most invariable 
accompaniments of the decline of life, and one of the most 
significant prognostics of its approaching close ; for the 



KEY. WM. E. WEED. 75 

growing dimness with which visible objects are seen, what 
can more fitly remind us that they are soon to vanish wholly 
and forever from our sight ? 

3. The next of these symptoms of senility is, in part, a 
repetition of one that he had specified in the preceding verse. 
''And the doors shall be shut in the streets when the sound 
of the grinding is low." Commentators differ more in their 
explanation of this than of any of the other items of this 
inventory ; but instead of wearying you with a recital of 
their several interpretations, some of which are fanciful 
enough, we will simply give you that which we believe to 
be nearest to the truth. We believe then that the allusion 
which underlies this fissure is this : Among: the Eastern na- 
tions anciently, as now to a considerable extent, corn was 
ground for food in hand-mills (" two women shall be grind- 
ing at the mill") ; a small portable one with which every 
kitchen was supplied, and which was worked by one, or, 
more conveniently, by two persons. Now had you passed 
along the streets of Jerusalem some morning in the days of 
Solomon, your ears would have been saluted w^th the clatter 
of these mills from every dwelling, — and all the harder if the 
doors that led to the street were open, — as the maids were 
preparing the flour that was to be used during the day. But 
supposing the doors to be shut, the sound of the grinding, 
thus confined within, would be proportionately lower in con- 
sequence. Now by the doors, with reference to the literal 
subject of the passage, we understand the mouth, or lips; 
especially as the Hebrew word, thus translated, is in the dual 
number, that number, speaking grammatically, by which two 
and only two are denoted : the two doors shall be shut ; that 
is, the two lips which, like folding doors, close up the orifice 
of food and speech. So David, in Psalm cxli. : " Set a 
watcli, O Lord, before my mouth — keep the door of my 
lips." " So that," says Poole in his annotations on the pas- 
sage, "these words may be paraphrased thus — When, or 
because, the teeth, called the grinders, are low and few, 
whereby both his speech is low, and the noise which he 
makes in eating is small, there is a great indisposedness both 
to eating and speaking ; and therefore the doors — that is, the 
mouth— ^is said to be shut ; not absolutely, of course, but 
comparatively ; in plain words, the man opens his mouth but 
little, either to eat or talk, because of the defect of the teeth 
which are such important organs in both ;" which corre- 



76 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

spends to the allusion, that we suppose the words are found- 
ed on in this, that in both cases the shutting of the door is 
inseparably connected with the inefficiency and low sound 
of tlie ii^rindins^. 

4. The remaining specifications in this verse, and that 
which follows, are of a miscellaneous character, a mingling 
of the subjective and the objective, of the visible signs and 
inferential tokens of decay, Avithout any apparent order, but 
all of them of the most graphic description. Most of them, 
however, are so obvious in their signification, that we shall 
dispatch them briefly. 

(1.) ''lie shall rise up" (that is, wake up — bestir himself 
from slumber) ''at the voice of the bird." This may denote 
either the nervous sensitiveness of the aged one, such that 
the slightest sound, even the chirping of a bird, will wake 
him sooner than a clap of thunder ; or, rather, as this seems 
incompatible with what is said of his dulness of hearing im- 
mediately after, it more probably refers to his incapacity for 
long, continuous slumber, his unquiet rest, waking as soon 
as the voice of the birds is heard abroad ; whereas children 
and youth can prolong their slumbers late in the morning. 

(2.) "And all the daughters of music shall be brought 
low." This some take to be a Hebraism, denoting those 
organs, the ear especially, which music is adapted to excite 
and gratify, and which tail in old age; just as in Hebrew, an 
arrow is called " the son of the bow," because it is adapted 
to it. There is, however, a simpler and more obvious ex- 
planation. Music was and is a special Eastern luxury. A 
part of the establishment of a wealthy oriental was a number 
of singing women to regale him with their song. The palace 
of Solomon was, doubtless, well supplied in this respect. But 
with the old man these daughters of music are at a discount 
— their occupation is gone; their inspiring strains fall all 
unheeded, yea unheard, on his dull cold ear; as saith the 
aged Bazillai, when David invited him to court, " Can I hear 
any more the voice of singing men and singing women ?" 
There can be no sadder proof of the inroads of age than this 
insensibility to that earthly enjoyment, which, of all others, 
is most nearly entitled to be called divine. 

(3.) "Also when he shall be afraid of that which is high, 
and fear shall be in the way." Courage is begotten of con- 
scious strength and power ; fear is the offspring of weakness. 
Hence the conscious feebleness of the old man makes him 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 77 

shrink from the danger whicli the young man defies. Hence 
the same individual, who, at twenty, would climb the loftiest 
tree for the sake of a handful of its fruit, and cragged rocks 
and eminences for the mere excitement of the thing, at 
seventy, never likes to trust himself far above terra iirma, 
nor will even ascend a flight of stairs without carefully feel- 
ing his way at every step. 

(4.) "And the almond-tree shall flourish." The obvious 
metaphor hei*e is one which is no stranger in other ancient 
works besides the Bible. " Thy head," —so we read in one 
of the tragedies of the Greek Sophocles, — "thy hoary head 
is covered with white flowers." But there is a special ap- 
propriateness in likening the locks of age to the bloom of 
the almond-tree, " because" — so says Kitto, in his physical 
history of that country — " because that in Palestine it blooms 
earlier than almost any other tree." He found it in full 
flow^er in January, the mid- winter of that climate as of ours. 
It was doubtless then, not less from the winter-blossoming 
of this tree than from its snow^- white blossoms, that the latter 
were selected to symbolize these hoary hairs which, though 
^vhite as the bloom of spring, belong only to the winter of 
life's year. 

(5.) "And the grasshopper shall be a burden." That is, 
the man has grown so feeble that the least w^eight, even 
that of so small an insect, becomes burdensome to him w^ho 
can scarcely carry himself about, or is grown so irritable 
that the chirping of the grasshopper annoys him, or so mel- 
ancholy that its cheerful note jars harshly on his spirits. 
Take it as you will, it signifies that little things are matters 
of serious moment with the aged one, and that this disposi- 
tion to make much of trifles, and be much affected by them, 
that disposition so characteristic of his first childhood, is 
proof that he has reached his second. 

(6.) "And desire shall fail." Here, at the very close of 
this description, the metaphor is dropped, and an item added 
w^hose terms are to be taken in their literal sense. Desire 
here, is put for appetite in general, for all those bodily 
tastes which the great storehouse of nature, in its variety 
of contents, is adapted to gratify ; but w^hich w^ear out with 
years, and leave us to exclaim, wdth the provisions of the full 
banquet of nature and providence before us, "I have no 
pleasure in them." So that remarkable Jew, whose language 
we quoted in part just now, tells the king of Israel: "I am 

7* 



78 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

this day fourscore years old, and can I discern between good 
and evil?" — (he obviously means natural, not moral good 
and evil.) — " Can thy servant taste what I eat and w^hat I 
drink ?" And what he says of these and some of his other 
natural tastes was doubtless true of all of them. And this 
failure of desire, you perceive, is immediately associated 
with the final close of life — " because man goeth to his long 
home and the mourners go about the streets." When one 
has become dead to those earthly enjoyments that were 
once so sweet, so courted, it is proof that he will soon be 
dead literally. When his zest for the various goods of this 
world is gone, it is proof that he has little further business 
with it, and must soon be gone himself to other worlds. 

II. What adds to the significancy of this sad catalogue of 
infirmities is, that they are irremediable ; there is no curing 
them. You may have observed that every one of them, 
without a single exception, even to the changing of the color 
of the hair, may be, and often is produced by an ordinary fit 
of disease. I have seen a man of thirty, yea, of twenty, as 
the result of a long and wasting sickness, exhibit almost the 
exact counterpart of a man of eighty. But here, when the 
cause ceases the effect disappears. Yet, on the other hand, 
if identity of symptoms entitles old age to be ranked among 
the diseases incident to humanity, it differs from all of them 
in being incurable. No amelioration, no improving the 
symptoms here. If age is beginning to impair my bodily 
appetites, I shall never recover them ; but the impairing 
process will go on till I shall be constrained to say : " My 
joys are gone, all gone" — at least w^iatever of them dej^end 
upon those appetites. If age is beginning to prey upon my 
strength, I shall never regain it, but grow feebler till I arrive 
a second time at the imbecility of infancy. If my limbs are 
beginning to be palsied with age, I shall never get the better 
of it till that palsy ends in the paralysis of death. If my feet 
are beginning to go unsteady from the numbness of age, 
they will only grow more so till they totter into the grave. 
From all other personal evils there is hope of deliverance, of 
change for the better. But for the evils of old age there is 
no hope of change, except from bad to worse, aggravating 
infirmities, increasing decay, growing dilapidation, till the 
king of terrors puts the finishing stroke and completes the 
ruin. 

III. And what a lesson here for the pride of manhood ! 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 79 

Is that almost fleshless, wrinkled skeleton, that poor extenu- 
ated one, who has lost half his senses, and his appetite for 
all the pleasures which come in through the other half, 
feebly making his way yonder at a snail's pace, bent half- 
double over his staff — is that what I have got to come to ? 
Yes, young man, rejoicing in the pride of your youth, or the 
strength of your manhood's prime, it is even so — unless the 
worms claim their banquet sooner. If you live to the full 
age of man, you will one day become that poor, decrepit, 
joyless, helpless thing that is figured in the text — your hands 
trembling, your limbs tottering beneath their emaciated bur- 
den, your hair turned to almond-blossoms, the windows of 
your body curtained by the films of age, and the portals of 
your ears closed up against the beloved voices and the de- 
lightful harmonies that please and charm you now, the hope- 
less and unreparable wreck of your present self How little 
reason, then, have we to pride ourselves on the strength and 
vigor of our physical manhood ? Is it not enough to strike 
that pride into the dust, to think of the brief duration of 
these vaunted manly powers, and the imbecile decrepitude 
in which they must end so soon ? 

IV. But if there is no preventive and no cure, still, is there 
no alleviatinsc offset to those ills and infirmities that cluster 

CI? 

round the night of life ? Is this the wretched destiny of man, 
to sport for a moment in the strength of manhood, and then 
go to wreck and ruin by piecemeal, and at last be shovelled, 
a useless, worn-out carcass, into the grave ? Not so, dear 
hearer. What we have been expatiating on is, indeed, the 
inevitable lot of him who is born of Adam. But the child 
of Adam may be born again, born of God, born of his Spirit, 
made new in Christ Jesus, and made to share the plenitude 
of his immortal life. And it is the glorious prerogative of 
this new creation, to wax in its appropriate strength and un- 
earthly vigor, in proportion as the frail body it is incased in 
wanes ; to be renewed day by day as the outer man perisheth. 
Do the keepers of his house of clay begin to tremble, and its 
once strong supporters bow themselves ? — But the keepers 
of that nobler palace are Eternal hands, and its supporting 
pillars are the strength of the Lord Jehovah. Are the win- 
dows of his body darkened to earthly sights and objects? — 
But through the transparent windows of his soul the blessed 
image of the God he loves, and the heaven he hopes for, ray, 
in a cheering light, into all her chambers. Do his nights 



80 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

grow sleepless ? — But a Celestial Watcher keepeth vigil with 
him, and his soul is satisfied, as with marrow and fatness, 
when he remembers him upon his bed and meditates on him 
in the night-watches. Doth his heavy ear forget the taste 
and pleasure of a song ?— But his spirit is regaled the while 
with a sweeter harmony than was ever begotten from human 
voice or instrument — for God's statutes, God's truth, God's 
promises, these are his songs in the house of his pilgrimage. 
Are his appetites for earthly joys decaying? — His soul is 
feeding with unpalled appetite on the food of angels. Hath 
the grasshopper become a burden ? — It is but the token that 
his soul shall soon be surcharged with an eternal weight of 
glory. Do the almond-blossoms begin to flourish on his 
head ? — They tell him that the amaranthine crown of life is 
soon to invest his immortal brows. There is no dreariness, 
then, about the old age of a good man, a man in Christ. 
Point you to his growing infirmities? But what import 
they but the taking down the old house in order to let loose 
the spirit into such a mansion as Christ prepares for his fa- 
vorites ? Say you, he hath reached the winter of his ex- 
istence ? We tell you, he hath reached the land of Beulah 
where the sun shines and the flowers bloom all the year — 
which, just because it is so near the hill of Zion, is more 
thickly bestrewn than any other part of his pilgrimage with 
the sacred sweets that are scattered thence this side the veil ; 
and there, next doo^* .o heaven, he is w^aiting, feasting on its 
precious antepas., till the pearly gates unfold and let him 
into the immediate banquet of the skies — those regions of 
immortal youth and bowers of everlasting spring. 

Such is the old age of a good man. Is it likely to be 
realized in thine, dear hearer, supposing that you live to 
reach it ? 

1. Do you begin to be sensible of its approaching tokens? 
Do you find that system, that was once so perfect in all its 
movements, beginning to run down ? That means that it is 
going to stop. Have you made provision for this by nour- 
ishing within you a spiritual and immortal system, which 
shall compensate for the decay and survive the dissolution of 
the other ? Are your feet growing unsteady ? That means 
that they are soon to stumble on the dark mountains. Have 
you anticipated this by fixing them on the Rock of Ages ? 
Are gray hairs here and there upon you? They are the 
first snow-flakes that tell you the winter is coming ? Have 



KEY. WM. B. WEED. 81 

you prepared for it by providing yourself comfortable quar- 
ters in the warm tabernacle of a Saviour's love, and laying 
up a plentiful stock of provisions in the grace of God ? In 
nothing is the mercifulness of Providence more apparent 
than in causing these symptoms of decay and dissolution to 
come upon us, not all at once, but by degrees, as if on pur- 
pose to give us fair warning to prepare for the close of life. 
In nothing is the madness of men more apparent than in dis- 
regarding all these warnings, making no provision for the 
future, living only for the world till it has lost its power to 
charm, and a wasted manhood leaves them no other prospect 
but a cheerless old age and a hopeless death. 

2. Shall this sad lot be thine, dear youth, for whose 
especial benefit the text was written ? " Remember thy 
Creator — before the evil days come." In the three follow- 
ing verses, which we have been discoursing on, he in'forms 
you, in several specifications, what is meant by these " evil 
days," which are so many arguments to enforce his exhorta- 
tion. Remember him in the days of thy youth ; for if you 
do not, you will be little likely to remember him then. 
That gloomy period is as unpropitious to seek the Lord as 
the winter season is to plant or sow. But if ye remember 
him now, he will remember you then. " Even unto old age 
I am he, and even unto hoar hairs will I carry you." Be- 
lieve, then, the Spirit of God ; believe the man — not me, but 
the writer of the text, who here addresses you from the bleak 
summit of the hill of life, and assures you, from his o^vn ex- 
perience, that the only sure antidote to its infirmities and 
ills, — its clouds, and storms, and darkness, — is to remember 
thy Creator, God, and Saviour, in faith and love, while the 
beams of life's young morning are yet around thee. 



82 SERMONS Br THE LATE 






^^The church of the living God^ the pillar and ground of the 
truthr—l Tim. iii. 15. 

''''Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone ; in whom 
all the building filly framed together groweth unto an holy temple 
in the Zorc?."— Eph. ii. 20, 21. 

The truth as it is in Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega of 
the Church. Considered as his building, it is her foundation ; 
considered as his handmaid, it is the treasure she is appoint- 
ed to defend and guard ; considered as his bride, it is her 
necessary food — the indispensable sustenance of her distinc- 
tive life. Her specific title is, its ground and pillar ; her spe- 
cific vocation is, to uphold and maintain it ; while to be built 
upon it by faith, — in plain vrords, a cordial belief of it, — is 
the essential condition of the development and perfection of 
her specific character of holiness. Built upon the foundation 
of the apostles and prophets, — rooted and grovmded in the 
gospel they delivered, — she groweth unto a holy temple in 
the Lord. We have insisted on these points in various for- 
mer discourses. At present we propose to deduce from 
them certain practical propositions for the use of instruction 
and edification. 

I. The interests of the Church are not to be promoted by 
the exclusive glorification of any form of ecclesiastical organ- 
ization at the expense of the truth. Let me not be misun- 
derstood. I no more believe it is a matter of indifference 
what form of church polity is adopted, — that one is as good 
as another, — than that any form of corporeal organization 
in a human being, — that of a four-footed creature, or a bird, 
or a fish, — would have equally suited the exigencies of his 
nature. What I insist upon is, that as truly in the one in- 
stance as in the other, the outward form is and shall be re- 
garded as a secondary affair; that the body shall not be 
mistaken for the soul in the former case any more than in 
the latter. N'ow the soul, the vital spirit of the Church, is a 
godlike and God-given holiness — the product of obedience 
to the truth. What then do we infer as to the externals of 
the Church ? Obviously, that they should be such as are 
calculated to give freest scope to the truth ; that the best 
modes of worship are the simplest, those which are least en- 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 83 

cumbered with truth-obscuring forms; that the best form of 
government is that which is most democratic, in which the 
whole brotherhood of each ecclesiastical family are allowed 
to govern themselves in the name of Christ, and according 
to the law of his truth, with no earthly master to interfere 
between them. While I utterly disclaim — yea, while I 
would hold it a sin against Christ to cherish any principle, 
any feehng, any prejudice which would forbid me to recog- 
nize, to honor, and to love, as a v^eritable specimen of his 
true Church, any ecclesiastical community, of whatsoever 
name, that holds the essentials of the truth of God, — I am yet 
iirmly persuaded, as I suppose that most of my hearers are, 
that such a system as the foregoing is best adapted for the 
development and perfection of those principles which consti- 
tute the distinctive life, and power, and glory of the Church. 
But we tell you the most effectual w^ay to make everybody 
deny it, is to thrust the secondary in advance of the essen- 
tial, and assert that it matters little what a Church believes, 
what are her doctrinal principles, provided she be apostoli- 
cally simple in her worship and democratic in her govern- 
ment. To recur to our figure, it is as if one should say it 
matters little w^hether a human being is a man of sense, or a 
fool, or an idiot, or a madman, provided he has a faultless set 
of limbs. To aggrandize any external church system, — be 
it corrupt as Popery or pure as Congregationalism, — at the 
expense of the sacred gospel truth, of which the Zion of 
God is the appointed shrine, guardian, exemj^lar, ground, 
and pillar; to say to the former. Sit thou here in a good 
place, and to the latter. Stand thou there, or sit here under 
my footstool ; is to make the last first and the first last ; is 
to read the gospel backwards ; is to aim an assassin-blow at 
the honor and character of the Church ; is as if the Jew^, 
while glorifying his temple, its fair proportions, its massive 
columns, and glittering pinnacles, had done personal insult 
to that by which alone the temple was sanctified into a 
diversity from other edifices — the awful Shechinah — en- 
shrined within her veil. Doubt you of the perfect apostol- 
icity of the Galatian Church in all things external, at the 
very moment when an apostle was denouncing her members 
as a company of bewitched fools for not obeying the truth ? 
And yet that disobedience appears to have been confined to 
one single vital point of truth — the doctrine of justification. 
We pray you to observe that — while in the church, as in 



84: SERMONS BY THE LATE 

the State, the last system is the freest, abstractly consiclered 
— the indispensable condition of its working well, in either 
case, is the faculty and the disposition for self-control, the law- 
abiding spirit on the part of the individuals who compose it. 
Now what is the secret of that disposition and that spirit on 
the part of the members of the commonwealth of Jesus ? It 
is, to be under the law to Christ. That makes them free 
from the law of self and sin, fit participators and worthy de- 
positaries of gospel liberty, in every sense of the word. The 
most implicit, the most abject — though willing — slave of the 
truth as it is in Jesus, is fittest to enjoy the immunities and 
to discharp'e the functions of a member of the free Church of 
Jesus. Hence it is that the most ardent friend of church 
freedom, the most strenuous Congregationalist or Independ- 
ent, if you please, is beholden by consistency to be the most 
uncompromising advocate of gospel truth. IndiflTerence to 
the latter, coupled with an avowed devotion to the former, 
is as if one should profess a special zeal for republican insti- 
tutions in the State, and manifest an utter lukewarmness to- 
wards popular education, and those other instrumentalities 
by which such institutions must stand or fall. The reason 
which one of the wisest of the early fathers gives for that 
unhappy change by which the democratic principle, which 
was the order of the day in the primitive Church, was dis- 
placed by the monarchical, is, the alarming growth of here- 
sy. The Church had departed so far from the truth, that 
she needed a master to compel her into the right track, and 
keep her there. Her corruption in doctrine, her consequent 
demoralization in character, had rendered her unfit for self- 
government ; she was in danger of falling into utter disor- 
ganization ; and so the crosier was invented to prop her up. 
Let those who glory in having reinstated that primitive 
democracy in the Church, take warning. Let them beware, 
lest in their zeal for their favorite, our favorite polity, they 
suflfer, through neglect or oversight, its sustaining pillar to 
fall into decay. That sustaining pillar is a pure faith ; the 
sanctifying, enhghtening, liberalizing power of Christ's evan- 
gehsm. That once displaced. Or set aside, the capacity for 
an orderly self-government in th^ Church is gone, and des- 
potism or anarchy is the only alternative. 

II. To compromise the peculiar doctrines of the gospel, to 
withdraw them from their appropriate position in the fore- 
front of her ecclesiastical economy, and thrust them into the 



KEY. WM. B. WEED. 85 

background, as if she were ashamed or afraid to defend 
them, is a com*se that can never be adopted by the Church, 
or her ministry, consistently with her honor and safety ; con- 
sistently with her heaven-appointed function, as the pillar 
and ground of the truth. It is not to be concealed that 
there are strong existing temptations to such a course. That 
system of truth which ascribes to man an all-sinful nature, 
that debars him from the favor of God, and makes him a child 
of wrath eternal; which teacheth that the ground of his 
restoration to the former and deliverance from the latter is 
the propitiatory satisfaction of an infinite atonement ; that 
not his own works of righteousness are the efficient cause of 
his justification before God the Father, but his own free, 
sovereign, electing grace, operating through the sacrificial 
blood of his martyred Son, and that the application of that 
blood in renewing and sanctifying the soul is the exclusive 
work of God the Spirit ; — in that system of truth, that pur- 
veyor of eternal life to men, the glorious gospel of the bless- 
ed God ; behold, — incredible spectacle, but that it is attested 
by experience — but that it was foretold by Jesus and his 
apostles' prophecies, — behold the chiefest visible object of 
human loathing. All ranks, all classes of men, save one, — 
the very pride, and selfishness, and sin, which constitute 
their need of the grace of the gospel, make them spurn the 
humiliating plight to which it would reduce them. They 
hate it for its uncompromising exposure of their own charac- 
ter, and guilt, and ruin ; and for the pride-abasing remedy it 
proposes. They hate it for what it tells them that they are, 
and for the humiliatinsj terms on which alone it offers to 
make them otherwise. I^ow, where shall this glorious out- 
cast of the world, — despised and rejected of men, — where 
shall she look for an asylum, a refuge, and a stronghold? 
Where, but among those whom grace has taught to appre- 
ciate her true character. Where, but among those who 
have learned to estimate her as the mighty renovator of the 
human race, by feeling in their own souls her renewing 
power, and as the glorious benefactor of man, by having 
been raised from the borders of the pit by her recovering 
grace ? Where, in a word, but in the Church of God which 
is composed of such ? Here, at least, should God's sacred 
truth, however elsewhere spoken against, find none but 
stanch friends, fearless defenders, uncompromising cham- 
pions, who, just in proportion to the virulence with which it 



86 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

is assailed from without, feel the ardor of their own devotion 
rise to a higher flood-mark, and exclaim : " Though all men 
should deny thee yet will not we !" Yet, Ave have said, 
there are strong temptations, in the circumstances of the 
times, to a diflerent course. The philosophy and the litera- 
ture of the day are strongly impregnated with an anti-Chris- 
tian element. Skepticism and error, under their legion names 
and forms, — not seldom under the stolen garb of Christianity 
itself, — are assailing the doctrines of the cross with an ani- 
mosity as old as the gospel itself, but in many cases with 
new and plausible weapons. And in the several ranks of 
this anti-gospel host, stand many who cannot but be admired 
for their talents, honored for their learning, and esteemed 
for their social and philanthropic virtues. Hence the strong 
incentive with those w^ho are set for the defence of the gos- 
pel, to shrink from the position of a firm antagonism to such 
opponents ; to endeavor to appease and conciliate them by 
smoothing over and softening down its more objectionable 
points; to profess the liberality that is ready to spread a 
veil over the more repulsive features of the Calvinism em- 
bodied in its pages, so as to commend it to the favor of its 
learned, polite, and refined detestors, to whom its uncovered 
nakedness is an abomination. But such liberality on the 
part of the Church, or her ministry, towards the adversaries 
of the truth, is infidelity to her heavenly Master. He hath 
constituted her his chosen host, furnished her with no carnal 
w^eapons, but with the spiritual and mighty panoply of his 
gospel truth, by which, through his reinforcing Spirit, she is 
to cast down imaginations, and every high thing that exalt- 
eth itself against the knowledge of God, and bring into cap- 
tivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. Such is her 
mission. To hide her weapons in the lumber-room instead 
of using them; to make a truce with her foes instead of 
fighting them ; to conciliate them by compromising the 
truth, which is the cause of warfixre, instead of boldly con- 
fronting them with its massive shield and trenchant sword, 
may, in a sense, be easier for her ; but it is treason to Christ. 
And if easier for herself it is no less fixtal. How long stood 
Rome's empire on either side the Adriatic after she adopted 
the miserable expedient of conciliating, bribing, buying off 
her enemies ? How long before the son of a Goth was seated 
on her Western, and a descendant of the barbarians of IsTorth- 
ern Asia had usurped her Oriental throne ? And how long 



KEY. WM. B. WEED. 87 

is the Church to maintain her lofty character and position 
as the spouse of Christ, as the kingdom of heaven on earth, 
if she allow herself to purchase the forbearance and good-will 
of her enemies and his, at the expense of the truth, Avhich is 
her breath of life in the one capacity, and her sustaining 
corner-stone in the other? Think you God's Zion would 
ever have assumed the glorious attitude, to which the great- 
est of ancient empires did homage in the fourth centur^^, if 
the apostle of the Gentiles in the first, with all the prejudice, 
and all the literature, and all the philosophy of the v/orld 
against him, had betaken himself to the pusillanimous expe- 
dient of popularizing the gospel, so as to render it less offen- 
sive and more palatable to the denouncing Jew, the haughty 
Roman, and the sneering Greek ? But the sturdy apostle 
would do no such thing. " I am not ashamed of the gos- 
pel," just as it is. Let the Jew defy, and the Greek despise 
it ; — it is the power of God for all that — and able, in the 
strength of his almightiness, to master both. No, brethren, 
the popularity that is purchased at the expense of principle 
costs infinitely more than it is worth. The liberality that is 
willing to sacrifice principle is not generosity, but suicide. 
With all our heart do we subscribe to the sentiment of Au- 
gustine, — borrowed, indeed, by him, in substance, from a 
higher source, — that, as regards the non-essentials of evan- 
gelical truth, the largest charity is to be exercised ; but in 
the spirit of the example of that arch-champion of the truth, 
and of other older and weightier examples still, do we insist 
that, as to all that constitutes its vital essence, an iron in- 
flexibility that never yields an inch, must be the order of 
the day. On the maintenance of such an inflexibility the 
final triumph of the Church is staked. If she flinch here, 
then write, " Ichabod" on all her glory, and sound the knell 
of despair over that best of causes with which she stands 
identified. 

III. And VNdiile it is indispensable that the Church should 
hold fast the truth, in order to maintain her appropriate 
character, and discharge her heaven-appointed mission, she 
can do neither by merely holding it. Our hearers grievously 
mistake us if they conclude, from any of the foregoing re- 
marks, that we have any sympatliy with a mere dry, petri- 
fied, fossil orthodoxy, to be kept in a glass case for show ; 
ostentatiously paraded, strenuously defended, but never put 
to use. We believe that a church may be as orthodox as 



88 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

Calvin, — every man and woman of its members, — and yet 
no more come mider the definition of a " holy temple in the 
Lord" than a synagogue of Satan. The truth must be held 
in order to be practised, and therefore, in the strongest terms, 
do we protest against a latitudinarian indifference to it: but 
it is of no use to hold it without practising it ; and, there- 
fore, do we disckiim all fellowship with a mere speculative, 
barren gospelism, which we believe Christ the Lord would 
curse, as he did the fig-tree, which had all the adjuncts of 
that species of vegetation, except fruit. One of the most 
plausible grounds on which the Church is attacked, at the 
present day, is her alleged inefKciency as regards those very 
practical ends for which she professedly exists — the moral 
improvement of mankind, the suppression of evil, the promo- 
tion of the cause of benevolence and humanity ; which doubt- 
less are to be reckoned among her appropriate functions as 
a holy church, as being at once the manifestation of her 
divine virtue, and the means of perfecting it ; for what is 
benevolence but holiness made visible ? Associations, it is 
said, and organizations of human devising, are accomplishing 
more in these prime departments of practical philanthropy 
than the Church of Christ with all her orthodoxy. Now, 
how shall we meet this charge ? By indignantly denying 
it, denouncing all such associations as unauthorized human 
inventions, and asserting the infinite superiority of the Church 
as built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, 
with Christ himself for its corner-stone ? This will not help 
the matter. '' By their fruits ye shall know them ;" and if 
the world, applying to the Church this Christ-sanctioned 
test, finds less of the fruits of benevolence, humanity, good- 
will to men in her than elsewhere, it will, for all her preten- 
sions, bestow the palm of superiority elsewhere, and deny it 
to her, and her character, and with it the truth of which she 
is the pillar, will fall into contempt. No ; the only way to 
confound the charge in question, is to give it the practical lie. 
When Ariosto's hero met a rival knight, who had assumed 
the eagle argent in a field azure, which was his own cogni- 
zance received by patent from his sovereign, the way he 
took to make good his superior right to wear it was, not by 
hard words and violent assertions, but by encountering that 
rival in the lists, with equal arms, and making him bite thq 
dust. And so, if rival associations usurp the armorial bear- 
ings with which Heaven's King hath invested his Church, hav- 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 89 

ing for their motto benevolence, humanity, good-will to men, 
she is to make good her superior claim, by giving practical 
proof that she deserves these titles better than they; — beating 
them at their own weapons. We, indeed, have not one par- 
ticle of confidence in the substantial and permanent utility 
of any institution or association for the amelioration of the 
human race, in any department, which has not the enduring 
vitality of Christian benevolence to sustain it, the long-suffer- 
ing- sturdiness of Christian self-denial to undermrd it, the 
steady equipoise of Christian moderation to regulate it, the 
divine essence of Christian faith to leaven it, and the hallow- 
ed power of Christian prayer to sanctify and crown it with 
Heaven's benediction. But this must not merely be asserted ; 
it must be proved by practically exhibiting that divine or- 
ganization, which has these very elements for part of her 
alleged furniture, as tlie prime, unrivalled, unapproachable 
model of a true handmaid of the glory of God, and the veri- 
table incarnation of a fruitful, persevering, all-embracing 
good-will to men. 

There are two prevailing ideas in practical vogue, as to 
w^hat the moral influence of the Church consists in, and the 
manner in which it is to be exerted ; — which may be thus 
illustrated. An army is enrolled and organized for a certain 
service ; for the purpose, suppose, of foreign invasion and 
conquest. They assemble, with ample arms and equipments, 
in some quarter of the enemy's country, fortify themselves 
in an intrenched camp, and stay there. Every few days, 
indeed, there is a grand parade. The whole army turns 
out, and there is a marvellous display of arms and artillery, 
and flourishing of trumpets and beating of drums, and rear- 
ing of standards ; and then they return to their quarters. 
The question is, how long will it take them, at this rate, to 
conquer the enemy ? Is it not evident, that if they w^ould 
fulfil the purpose for which they were enlisted, they must 
quit this sedentary attitude, and go forth and annoy the 
enemy, at any assailable point and by any available means ; 
must send out flying parties to cut ofi* his detachments, as 
well as join their banners to encounter his main forces in the 
open field ? 

l^ow the Church is the Lord Jesus' instrument of con- 
quest. " Arise and thresh, O daughter of Zion. I Avill make 
thee a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth ;" and 
these teeth are just her ow^n holy principles, the product of 

8* 



90 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

the truth she holds ; and with that instrument he intends to 
thresh down the kingdom of Satan ; in other words, she is 
his army wdth w^hich he means to subdue it ; to sweep vice 
in every shape, sin in every form, from the face of the globe, 
like chaff from the threshing floor, and make it the blessed 
vassal of his own sceptre of righteousness, — the happy home 
of a peace, and a holiness, and a love like hers, like heaven's. 
The question is, which of the two aspects of our illustration 
best represents the appropriate mode in which the Church is 
to discharge this momentous mission. 

According to an extensively prevailing notion, the Church 
is practically contemplated only as a mass, a collective body, 
whose influence is to be mainly, if not exclusively, exerted 
through her standing ordinances and public ministrations. 
At stated periods there must be a general turnout. The 
Church must assemble, with whomsoever else may choose 
to meet with them, to hear the gospel soundly and ortho- 
doxly preached, and attend to the performance of its ordi- 
nances ; and that is practically all. How much positive 
good will that church accomplish ? How great, how exten- 
sive will be its antagonist power against existing evils ? How 
many South African Hottentots will it convert ? Hath its 
preacher the voice of the strong-lunged angel that can reach 
the antipodes? How many of the wretched victims of vice 
will it reclaim ? How many inebriates w^ill it reform, who 
avoid its assemblies as if the plague were there ? Is it not 
evident that the influence of that church is essentially con- 
fined within her four w^alls ? Vice, and sin, and misery may 
rear their abominable and revolting fronts under her very 
eav^s ; she cannot reach them. She is like the line-of-battle 
ship fast aground in a creek, — powerful enough there ; — woe 
to the small craft that come within reach of her guns ! But 
the enemy may stand a brief distance off and laugh at all 
her thunder. 

Now see the per contra. The Church is indeed to hold 
the truth as it is in Jesus in her written symbols as a col- 
lective body, and to hold it forth with a scrupulous fidelity 
in her public ministrations. But every one of her members 
is no less to hold it — in his head not merely, as a matter of 
speculation, but in his heart as a vital, energizing power, 
and regard himself under an individual responsibility to God 
to act it out in the exercise of an influence always and every- 
where according to the truth ; to make himself felt through 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 91 

every available channel, in every legitimate enterprise, as a 
foremost member of every legitimate organization by which 
good may be done, evil be suppressed, and the world made 
better. No matter in what way that influence be exerted, 
provided it keeps within the bounds of Christian principle ; no 
matter in what connection, and in what association he labors 
to do good and suppress evil, he is still fulfilling his vows as 
a sworn servant of his King, acting the part of a consistent 
member of the Church of Christ, a consistent professor of 
gospel truth. Need we say that a church composed of such 
members, every one of whom regards himself under a per- 
sonal responsibility to make himself all things to all men, 
and to do good to all men as he has opportunity, is most 
conformable to the grand, w^orld-rehovating design for which 
the Church was planted, armed with the truth, fortified 
by the grace, and gifted with the Spirit of her God ? Not 
like the car which is useless except on the land ; not like the 
vessel which is of no account except on the sea ; but like the 
angel of God, she hath a foot on the sea and on the land 
both. Her power is active everywhere. Wherever a good 
cause is to be promoted, an enterprise of mercy to be accom- 
plished, or an onslaught upon the powers of evil to be made, 
there her influence, exerted through the zealous hearts of her 
sons and daughters, is present and foremost, as it ought to be. 
And such a Church, such a living engine of good-will to 
men, — its members, one and all, philanthropists, lovers, ben- 
efactors of their species, in the largest, most comprehensive, 
most univei^al sense of the word, — it is the prerogative of 
the precious, vital truths of the gospel, and of nothing else, 
to make. Take a specimen of the stunted philanthropy 
which is the offshoot of that starveling religion which ig- 
nores the gospel, plants itself on the barren rock, the falla- 
cious quicksand of the native goodness of human nature, and 
has no other life but what consists in the development of 
that demonstrable nonentity. Thus saith one of the chiefest 
of the apostles of this new religion, which some at present 
are w^illing to accept as an improvement on the rehgion of 
the cross : " Do not tell me of my obligations to do good 
to all men — to put all poor men, for instance, into good 
situations. I tell thee, thou foolish philanthropist, that I 
grudge the dollar, the dime, the cent I give to such as do 
not belong to me, and to whom I do not belong. There is 
a class of persons to whom, by all spiritual affinity, I am 



92 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

bought and sold. For them, I will go to prison, if need be ; 
but your miscellaneous, popular charities, I nauseate them." 
How far beyond the mark of this narrow-souled misnomer 
of benevolence will that man's spirit be who, consciously 
sunk inlinite iathoms in the self excavated abyss of his own 
guilt, dead in trespasses and sins, hath been consciously 
raised, brought to life by the resurrection-power of the 
death of Jesus, and new-created in the image of God by the 
energy of the Maker-Spirit, purchased by his blood ; hath 
seen the dying Son of Man revealed to his awaking faith, as 
the Lord his righteousness; and seen the burden of his guilt 
roll off into the tomb of Immanuel and disappear, and found 
himself, the lost, the Ifell-doomed, enrolled a justified and 
adopted member of the covenant-family of the Holy One ! 
If, now, the Eternal Father, who chose him, out of his elect- 
ing love— chose him in Christ before the foundation of the 
world, and justified him freely by his grace; if Christ — 
whose expiring agonies carried that purpose into effect, re- 
deemed him by his blood, and woke in his heart the un- 
dying principle of a holy, heavenly love, by bringing it in 
contact with the warm pulsations of his own — now bid Ijim, 
by the mighty argument of redeeming mercy, go to work 
after a God-Hke and Christ-like fashion on the world-wide 
field of human welfare,— not more rejoicingly does the ship, 
under the joint impulse of sails and steam rush forth upon 
her watery way, than he on that career of holy and benevo- 
lent effort in which his new-born, heaven-born powei's are to 
find their congenial and delightful exercise, and the grateful 
devotion, with which a justifying God and a redeeming Jesus 
have inspired him, is to be made manifest. Yes, it is the 
man to whom the deepest insight into his own original, total, 
native depravity has given the most sensible appreciation of 
the sovereign grace of God the Father and the redeeming 
love of God the Son, who the most cheerfully will lay his 
soul and body a living sacrifice on the altar of both, and cro 
till he falls down, for the glory of God and for the end which 
his heart is most deeply enlisted in— the good of man. 

Brethren, those men of the seventeenth century, from 
whom we boast our descent in the Hne of natural and in the 
line of ecclesiastical genealogy — who received the name of 
Puritan as a term of contempt and made it a badge of ever- 
lasting honor; to whom, because the old woi'ld was not 
worthy of them, the providence of God assigned the viro-in 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 93 

soil of a new one in whi(;h to rear a new creation worthy of 
him and them, — adopted the system of Congregationalism, 
not for any worth or intrinsic virtue inherent in itself— for 
their li.sing senses had too completely chased the ignorant 
fumes that mantled the reason of all Christendom for ages, 
to suppose that such properties appertained to any form of 
church polity, however pure and perfect — they adopted, 
cherished, loved that system, as, in their view, the best and 
fittest embodiment of that to which, next after him from 
whose eternal throne it came, the supremest homage of their 
souls was given, the truth of the gospel, the theology of the 
cross. In their own England they had seen that truth cru- 
cified between the two thieves of 'worldly pomp and eccle- 
siastical corruption — robbed of its divine simplicity and 
beauty by the imposition of childish paraphernalia of gew- 
gaw forms, and emasculated of its power by the poisonous 
infusion of traditionary fooleries. They came to the rescue ; 
they raised the banner-cry and bared the blade of reform — 
not, mark you, as zealots for Congregationalism, but as 
champions of the truth. By the corrupt establishment 
which they renounced, they were known and hated in tha 
latter character long before tliey were known to anybody, 
CA^en to themselves, in the former. Their first movement 
was to reinstate God's pure evangel on its original, apostolic, 
Calvinistic basis ; their next, to incorporate it in fitting forms, 
naturally selecting those which were least complicated, least 
cimibrous, and least capable of being corrupted into formal- 
ism, or degenerating into spiritual despotism. And the truth 
which they had thus vindicated and re-asserted, their next 
and life-long movement was to exemplify its power in that 
new and unincumbering dress. And did they not exemplify 
it? Is not half a continent reaping to-day the fruits of the 
mighty day's-w^ork accomplished by those men of God? 
Those institutions, civil, religious, educational, of which they 
laid the foundation and hewed the pillars — which have made 
I^ew England the glory of all lands, the seminary of all the 
best elements of American greatness, and to which the 
world's reformei's, in every land, are turning their admiring 
eyes — stand living proof of the active energy with which a 
free gospel pervaded and inspired those greatest of modern 
philanthropists, those devoted Congregationalists, those un- 
com]Dromising Calvinists, from whom we, our churches, and 
our church polity, are born. 



94 SERMONS BY TIIK LATE 

Behold in them your appropriate models and exemplars ! 
Say you, Congregationalism tirst, and evangelism, gospel 
truth, afterwards ? Is the former your Alpha, if not your 
Omega — your most favorite theme of eulogy, your chiefest 
symbol of fellowship — the to kalon if not the to pan of your 
cherished creed ? Then tell us in what respect any human 
being, of any denominational stamp, is better entitled to the 
designation of a mere form-worshipper than you ? You style 
the Papist or the Puseyite a formalist, because he exalts the 
externals of his church above the essentials of divine truth. 
And wliat else but a formalist is he, who exalts the externals 
of any church above the essentials of divine truth ? He is no 
friend to any system of church polity Avho persists in claim- 
ing for it such an overweening pre-eminence. He cannot do 
it a greater disservice — more calculated to degrade it, and 
bring it into public contempt. He is exalting the incidental 
above the essential, the adjunct above the principal, the 
handmaid above the mistress, the minister above the Sover- 
eign ; and that which is beautiful in its season, good in its 
place, thus forced into an extravagant and unnatural posi- 
jiion it was never meant to occupy, is simply made con- 
temptible. 

No, brethren, be this your watchword rather — " The truth 
first, and every thing else afterwards." That glorious system 
of evangelical specialties brought down from the heaven of 
his eternal habitation by God's last Prophet, preached by his 
apostles, made life and spirit by his cross — whose themes are, 
man reduced to a hopeless, helpless wreck, begun by the sin 
of his first father and completed by his own — restored by the 
sovereign, unbought grace of God, through the instrumen- 
tality of a veritable, literal sacrificial atonement, made prac- 
tically available through the agency of the Holy Ghost — be 
these the rock of your foundation, your golden bond of union, 
your essential terms of fellowship. Maintain that form of 
sound words against all gainsayers ; assert it in defiance of 
all opposers ; cherish it as the immediate jewel of your souls ; 
feed on it as the indispensable nutriment of your inner life ; 
hide it, as a sacred leaven, in your heart, that in its practical 
operation it may make you, like its earliest converts, living 
stones in the holy temple, faithful soldiers in the army, un- 
tiring laborers in the great work-field of the Lord. 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 95 



^' He is the Mediator of a better covenant^ which was established 
ujyon better promises''' — Heb. viii. 6. 

The infidel poet and misanthrope, Rousseau, spent a large 
portion of his life amidst some of the most magnificent sce- 
nery which the earth contains. Around and in the neigh- 
borhood of his residence were lakes, mountains capped with 
eternal snow, glaciers, avalanches, torrents — all the sublime 
and beautiful in nature was there in perfection. Writing 
from that residence to a friend at a distance, he exclaims : 
"I visit no chapel, I see no priest, I hear no homily; nor 
need I; for neither priest, nor chapel, nor homily" (and 
warming in his enthusiasm, he adds), " nor the whole world, 
nor the whole universe, could teach me so much of God as I 
learn in my walks every day." Now, from this professed 
worshipper of God and professed denier of his Son, let us 
turn to another individual, whose mind was lit up with the 
light of revelation, and whose heart was alive to the glories 
of redemption, and see what he thinks. Let us survey that 
individual in the solitude of midnight, with no companion but 
his lamp, and no scenery around him but that of his closet, 
cut ofi[' from the sight of God's works, and his w^hole atten- 
tion absorbed by the picture, which his mind has called up, 
of his redeeming grace. " Where roU'd my thoughts to rest 
from wonders? Other wonders rise and strike where'er 
they roll. My soul is caught. Heaven's sovereign bless- 
ings, clustering from the cross, rush on her in a throng, and 
close her round, the prisoner of amaze !" He who hath 
studied the Divinity only in his works, hath gone no further 
than the outer court of Godhead. It is only when we view 
him as a pardoning, redeeming, saving God, that we get into 
the inner sanctuary of his character. Here the full Deity is 
seen — not comprehended, to be sure. The soul is bewil- 
dered, astonished, lost, amazed at the baffling Avonders which 
she finds clustering round her redeeming God ; and yet 
these very baffling wonders, not less than those connected 
with his nature, his works of creation, and his ways of provi- 
dence, bespeak and proclaim him the glorious God, whose 
ways and thoughts are as high above ours as heaven is higher 
than the earth. I propose to confine myself, on the present 



96 SEKMONS BY THE LATE 

occasion, to a single one of the glorious mysteries of re- 
demption, even that which is suggested by inference from 
our text. A brief remark or two will prepare the way for 
our subject. 

1. Christ, in the text, is styled "the Mediator of a better 
covenant." Better than what ? Why, as you see from the 
context, better than the covenant of which Moses was the 
mediator, and to which Jehovah and the house of Israel were 
the two parties. And what was that? Why they promised 
obedience to all the commandments of God, and he, on that 
condition, promised them his continued protection and favor. 
Now, the covenant of which Christ is the Mediator is said 
to be better than this. 

2. But now the covenant of Sinai was, in all essential 
particulars, the same as the covenant of Eden. In fact, the 
former ought to be regarded as a republication of the latter 
— on a more enlarged scale, to be sure, but in principle the 
same. Life and the favor of God was promised in both cases, 
and in both cases on the same condition — the condition, that 
is, of perfect obedience to the commandments of God. Since 
the two, therefore, were in principle the same, and since the 
text asserts the covenant of which Christ was the Mediator 
to be better than the one (of Sinai), it follows that it is also 
better than the other (of Eden). 

3. But the latter w^as a covenant with a being who had 
never sinned ; and if sin had never entered this w^orld, the 
w^iole human race would have remained still under that cov- 
enant, even to the present hour. And hence we are brought 
to the conclusion, that the covenant which those who believe 
in Christ are under, is a better one than they w^ould have 
been under if they had never sinned. 

4. But in what sense better ? We learn from what imme- 
diately follows our text. In that it " was established upon 
better promises." In that covenant, God, by promise, hath 
laid himself under obligation to exercise a more lavish good- 
ness, a more liberal munificence, upon the subjects of it, than 
ever he promised to Adam before he fell. And the sum of 
all is, — and this is the proposition I mean to insist upon, — 
that those with whom God hath entered into a covenant of 
grace are placed in a better, more favorable, and even more 
dignified and exalted situation, than they would have been 
in if they had never sinned. 

I. It is a better situation in point of security. For, 



UKY, WM. B. WEED. 97 

1st. What is the security of a moral being under a cove- 
nant of works? It is just the security afforded by his own 
resources. He is put upon his good behavior, and his own • 
personal conduct must determine his standing with God 
from day to day. Perfect obedience is the inflexible condi- 
tion prescribed to him, and his first departure from it loses 
him the favor of God forever, and makes him his eternal foe. 
But a moral agent, the subject of God's moral government, 
and, as such, an object of reward or punishment, must, from 
his very nature, be liable to sin. For from his very nature 
lie must be capable of choice. Take that away, and you 
make him more impotent than a slave — you make him im- 
potent as a stock or stone. But, capable of choice between 
what ? Of course, between good and evil. He w^ho cannot, 
by any possibility, prefer good to evil, cannot, by any possi- 
bility, do good — and, of course, is not punishable for doing 
evil. He who is utterly and totally incapable of preferring 
evil to good, is utterly and totally incapable of doing evil ; 
and, of course, is not rewardable for doing good — deserves 
no credit for doing what he cannot help. Man, then, as a 
subject of God and an object of reward or punishment, must 
be capable of preferring either, and, of course, liable to do 
either, and would have been liable to sin, even if he had 
never done so, till this moment. If Adam had resisted the 
temptation of the infernal serpent, and every subsequent 
temptation, and were now living on the earth as w^e may 
suppose he would have been in that case, still, after fifty- 
eight centuries of obedience, who could predict but his nat- 
m-al propensities might tempt his natural power of choice 
into disobedience to-morrow? After fifty-eight centuries 
of holiness, how could he venture to assure himself but his 
power to sin would break out into the act of sin, before the 
world were a day older ? Such, then, Christian, must have 
been thy situation, if thou hadst never sinned ; placed on a 
mountain crowned with celestial flowers, and flowing with 
celestial streams of happiness, and with the light of celestial 
favor shining and beaming all around, and filling thy heart 
with the elastic cheerfulness of heavenly peace and joy, — and 
yet with a precipice at thy feet, down which thou wert liable 
every moment to fall and be crushed to atoms, — happy, per- 
fectly happy in the favor of God to-day, and yet liable to 
be tempted into sin, and plunged by that into perfect misery 

to-morrow. 

9 



98 SKKMONS BV THK LATE 

2d. I^ow, he who is under the covenant of grace is, in 
fact, justified by works. Do not be startled at this, for it is 
the only way m which a moral being can be justified, until 
the eternal law of God is abrogated. He who is under the 
covenant of grace, receives his title to the favor of God on 
the ground of a legal obedience; but the grand peculiarity 
is, tliat it is not on the ground of his own, but of Christ's 
legal obedience. " I," says he, " have undertaken for you. 
What the law could not do for you, I have done. What 
you could not do for yourself, I have done." The obedience 
of his life, and the sufferings of his death, and the fund of 
everlasting righteousness created by both, become available 
to believers under the covenant of grace, as an all-sufl[icient 
price to procure them the approving favor of God ; and 
seeing he ever lives to plead his obedience and suiferings in 
their behalf before the mercy-seat, his perpetual intercession 
secures to them, from day to day continually, the full benefit 
of the righteousness which springs from obedience and suf- 
ferings. So, then, their security from falling under the pen- 
alty of transgression consists in this, that the death of Christ 
cannot lose its value ; that the obedience of Christ cannot 
lose its meritorious efficacy ; that the righteousness of Christ 
cannot lose its propitiatory virtue. They must do so before 
the soul that is able to call them all his own, as every child 
of grace can, can fall beneath the wrath of God. And now 
need we ask. Which is the most secure, he who is put upon 
his own good behavior, or he who is put upon the good be- 
havior of an Infinite Redeemer ? He who can keep on good 
terms with God only while his own obedience lasts, or he 
who cannot be. on bad terms with God till the merit of the 
obedience of his Son gives out ? He who can maintain his 
credit with eternal justice only while his own righteousness 
holds out, which is perpetually liable to turn bankrupt, — and 
is sure to be cast into an eternal j^rison the moment that it 
does, — or he who is at liberty to draw to any extent on the 
inexhaustible bank of a Saviour's righteousness to meet any 
demand of eternal justice upon him ? In the former of these 
situations would you have been if you had never sinned. In 
the latter you are, if you are an heir of grace. We are thus 
led to our second remark. 

II. The situation of a soul under that covenant of which 
Christ is the Mediator, is better, more favorable than it would 
have been if he had never sinned, in point of future prospect. 



RKV. W:\r. B. AVEED. 99 

Hope is almost as pleasiinible to the soul as fruition ; the an- 
ticipation of good is ahiiost as delightful as its actual enjoy- 
ment. Indeed, it may be questioned whether the expectation 
of future good, especially if a great degree of certainty at- 
tends it, is not even more grateful than the remembrance of 
pleasures already enjoyed, already past. "Joys that are 
past," says one, " are pleasant and mournful to the soul ;" 
but there is nothing mournful in the anticipation of joys to 
come, particularly if we are very certain of them. And 
however this be, it is at all events true that the recollection 
of past delights, and the certain expectation of delights to 
come, together, are preferable to the former alone ; and this 
is just the case here. If men were sinless, and standing wpon 
the footing of perfect obedience, they would be secure of the 
past and present only; the future would be all uncertainty. 
Their track hitherto hath been strown with the divine enjoy- 
ments of holiness, and brightened with the smiles of a propi- 
tious God ; but shall it continue so through the long eternity 
before them ? They know not. They can turn their eyes 
to the happy realms Avhere Jehovah dwells, but they know 
not whether they shall ever arrive thither. They can dwell 
in thought on the superior bliss of those who are beholding 
him in his immediate glories, and drinking directly from the 
river of his pleasures ; but they know not whether they 
shall ever join them. It all depends upon their persevering 
obedience ; and they have no security but, before the period 
of their probation is closed, their feet may slip, temptation 
be yielded to, heaven be forfeited, and wrath eternal be in- 
curred. IsTow, from this state of doubtful misgiving, turn to 
that state of glorious certainty w^hich is the privilege of the 
heir of grace. For him hath Christ procured, not salvation 
merely, but everlasting salvation ; not redemption merely, 
but eternal redemption ; not life merely, but life eternal. 
Such is the word of God, which makes it the privilege of 
his chosen in Christ to look on the future, not as an abyss 
of doubt and darkness, but as a scene of light and glory. 
Whatever delights he hath already found in holiness — what- 
ever enjoyment he hath already found in God, it is his privi- 
lege to regard them but as the young dawn of an eternal 
morn in heaven. Whatever joys unspeakable, whatever 
heavenly pleasures faith reveals, as laid up in the immediate 
sanctuary where the Eternal dwells, it is the privilege of the 
believer to regard as laid up for him, and secured to him 



100 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

by all that is inviolate in the word of Jeliovah. Whatever 
strong consolation there is in the hope of life eternal, what- 
ever inspiring encouragement there is in the prospect of 
eternal glory, it is the privilege of the believer to lay claim 
to on the sure and steadfast guaranty of the promise and 
oath of God. "I live" — might that saint exclaim, if he had 
never sinned — "I live, but I may sin and die eternally." 
"I live," — he may now exclaim, — "yet not I, but Christ 
liveth in me; and while Christ liveth, I shall never die." 
"What shall separate me from the love of God?" might 
Adam exclaim, if he had never sinned ; and he would have 
been obliged to answer — " My own sins may, before another 
year is over." "What shall separate us from the love of 
God ?" could Paul exclaim, and he could answer — " I^either 
death nor life," nor any thing else in earth, and heaven, and 
hell, can do it. 

III. The situation in which a soul is placed under that 
covenant of which Christ is the Mediator, is better as re- 
gards the encouragements to persevere in holiness. It is 
more than can be expected of any government, that, after 
having delivered the law to its subjects, it should be careful 
to remove every thing out of their way which could possibly 
tempt them to violate it, and surround them with safeguards, 
and fill every house with agents to warn the people against 
violating it. The most that a government can be expected 
to do, is clearly to set forth the reward of obedience, and the 
penalty of disobedience, and then leave the subject to him- 
self, without exerting any special influence upon him to draw 
him either way, so that if he merits the former the credit 
shall be his own, and if he incurs the latter the guilt shall be 
his own. And this, accordingly, is all that we find Jeho- 
vah, in the administration of his moral government, to have 
done. While he laid down the law to Adam, promising life 
if he kept it, and threatening death if he broke it, he prom- 
ised him no special assistance to enable him to keep it. So 
of the law which was given to Israel. Blessing was pro- 
nounced upon him who fulfilled it, and curses were denounced 
against the violation of it ; but the presence and the aid of 
no heavenly agency was promised to assist in its fulfilment. 
So that, as far as I can see, the only external inducement to 
holiness in a state of mere law, in which state the human 
race would now be if they had remained sinless, would have 
been the hope of happiness and the dread of misery. Need 



KEY. WM. B. WEED. 101 

we say how much higher inducements the covenant of grace 
holds forth ? What exceeding great and precious promises 
does it unfold ? There is the Father, promising, " I will 
never leave thee nor forsake thee;" that "he will not suffer 
us to be tempted above w^hat we are able to^ bear ;" but, 
with the temptation, wuU also afford us the means of escape. 
Tiiere is a gracious Saviour, promising, " Lo, I am with you. 
alway," and " My grace is sufficient for thee." And there is 
the Holy Spirit, promised to abide with us in his sanctifying 
iniluences. And there are the angels, represented as minis- 
tering spirits, sent forth to minister to the heirs of salvation. 
A sinless being has this abiding conviction, that, in his efforts 
to be holy, he must mainly depend on his ow^n resources. A 
ransomed saint in his efforts to do the will of God, has this 
abiding encouragement, that he has all heaven to help him. 

IV. The situation of a soul under that covenant of which 
Jesus is the Mediator is better, more favorable, than if he 
had never sinned, in point of dignity. For the situation of 
a moral being under law, as every sinless being is, is essen- 
tially that of a subject. His rank is that of a subject. He 
is dealt with as a subject. He owes the obedience of a sub- 
ject, and he is rewarded or punished as a subject. But the 
situation of a soul under the covenant of grace is essentially 
that of a son and heir, through Christ. The case stands' 
thus : According to the provisions and promises of that cove- 
nant, as I before remarked, the soul is justified, that is, reck- 
oned and accounted righteous, in consequence of the obedi- 
ence of Christ. But now the righteousness of one being 
cannot make another righteous, unless such a union is con- 
stituted between them as to make them, in the sight of God, 
one moral person. And, therefore, by another provision of 
the covenant of grace, such a union is constituted between 
Christ and his saints, even by the bond of faith which makes 
them and him one moral person, and makes his righteous- 
ness imputable to them. Thus are they justified ; but thus, 
too, are they exalted ; for in virtue of that union they are 
made to partake of the sonship of Christ, and made to share 
wdth him in the paternal affections of the Father ; raised 
from the rank of subjects, and made partakers of the adop- 
tion of sons. For thus prays Christ himself; "I in them, 
and thou in me, that the world may know that thou hast 
sent me, and hast loved them even as thou hast loved me." 
So that, whereas man, in the perfect holiness with w^hich he 

9* 



102 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

came from the hands of his Maker, was made a little lower 
than the angels ; in virtue of the perfect union into which he 
is brought with Christ by the covenant of grace, he is made 
higher than the angels. For unto which of the angels hath 
it been said at any time, Ye are kings and priests unto God ? 
Unto which of the angels hath it been said. Ye are members 
of the Son of God ; members of his body, of his flesh, and of 
his bones ? Unto which of the angels hath been said, Ye 
are my brother, and sister, and mother, and the glory w^hich 
God hath given to me do I give to you ? But all this hath 
been said of the heirs of grace. 

V. The situation of a soul under the covenant of which 
Christ is the Mediator, is more favorable than it would have 
been if he had never sinned, if we consider the future hap- 
piness which is in store for both. There is one of the para- 
bles of our Lord which will help me to explain my meaning. 
You recollect that after the prodigal son, — returned to his 
father's house, — was received with feasting and rejoicing, his 
brother complained of the preference that was shown him. 
" Thou hast killed for him the fatted calf, and yet thou never 
gavest me a kid that I might be merry with my friends." 
But suppose that he had. Suppose on the day before, he had 
made for this dutiful child a banquet, precisely similar to 
fhat which welcomed the return of the repenting reprobate. 
Suppose he had killed the fatted calf, and invited his friends 
together in honor of his son. The feast is set, and the son 
sits down and partakes of it. The banquet is the same, the 
viands are the same, and the company is the same, as in the 
case of the prodigal ; but would the former have enjoyed it 
as the latter did ? For, behold the mighty difference. The 
former would be sensible that he deserved it. The latter is 
sensible that he deserves it not. The former knows that he 
hath fully earned these honors, the gracious smiles of these 
friends, the fond affection that beams from the eye of that 
father. The latter knows that he merits nothing but dis- 
grace ; and that all these honors, these tokens of fond affec- 
tion, are what he had no right to expect, are the kind be- 
stowment of one from whom he had no right to anticipate 
any thing but displeasure and rejection ? And must not this 
consideration heap coals of fire on his head, which will burn 
down to his very heart, and fill it with such humblingly 
grateful feelings, as it is a perfect ecstasy of humbling hap- 
piness to indulge, and which the other cannot know ? Now 



KEY. WM. B. WEED. 103 

place a sinless being, and a sinner justified and saved by 
grace, side by side at the full feast of heaven. In them- 
selves, the celestial provisions that are spread before them 
are equally inviting to both ; yet in the case of the latter, 
must they not be seasoned and heightened and deepened in 
their relish, by a torrent of feelings pouring through his soul, 
— when he thinks how he came by a seat there, — to which 
the former must necessarily be a stranger? How came he 
there ? Because the unaccountable love of God, from ever- 
lasting days, was exercised towards him a sinner. How 
came he there ? Because the Son of God poured out his soul 
an offering to eternal justice, and travailed in the greatness 
of his strength to procure eternal redemption for liim a sin- 
ner. How came he there ? Because the Eternal Spirit la- 
bored for many a year, in the energy of his sanctifying 
power, to make a saint of him, a sinner ; and because the 
angels of heaven were commissioned by God to act as min- 
istering and guardian spirits towards him, a sinner, during 
his earthly pilgrimage. Oh! while he sees the Almighty 
beaming upon him the smiles of love, as an adopted child ; 
and God's own son owning him as a brother of his heart, 
and a jewel of his crown ; and the Holy Spirit rejoicing over 
him as a trophy of his sanctifying power, and angels con- 
gratulating him as a co-heir of glory, and then reflects that* 
he, over whom all heaven rejoices, for whom all heaven thus 
pours forth her lavish stores of joy, is by nature a child of 
wrath, by nature the most undeserving creature that lives 
and breathes, by nature worthy only of the abhorrence of all 
those holy beings, by nature worthy only of a place among 
those, the smoke of whose torment he sees in the far-off dis- 
tance ascending fi-om the pit — I pause — I attempt not to 
describe his feelings. But can you not conceive that the 
humble, and yet overpowering, trusting gratitude, Avhich 
forms the chief ingredient of them, must give to his enjoy- 
ment of the feast of life eternal, an inconceivably more ex- 
quisite relish than if, all-holy and never-sinning from first to 
last, he had procured a seat on the everlasting hills by the 
merit of his owm obedience, and never known what it is to 
be a subject of God's abounding grace, and never felt what 
it is to be the beneficiary of an infinite Saviour's dying love ? 
1. Fellow-sinner, w^hat think ye of this exhibition of the 
bounty of heaven ? If it is just for a sovereign God to pun- 
ish sin, what must it be to pardon it ? If it is merciful to 



104: SERMONS BY THE LATE 

pardon it, what must it be to forget it, and treat the sinner 
as if he had never sinned ? If this would be a miracle of 
grace, what would it be to advance him to a position even 
more ehgible, in every point of view, than if he had never 
sinned ! And this is what Ave oifer you in his name to-day. 
Yes, ye sinners against the best of beings, ye crucifiers of 
your God, ye grievers of his Spirit ! We come to you to- 
day, and in "^place of the condign punishment which your sins 
deserve, we propose to you a glorious covenant-grace, whose 
provisions will place you — (wonder of mercy !) — will place 
you in a situation, as immortal beings, more secure, fi-aught 
with more inspiring prospects, more exalted and more hap- 
py, than if your heart had never revolted from your Maker, 
and sin had never made her abode therein. Here, here is 
the better covenant: repent, and cast your soul upon the 
glorious Mediator thereof, and it is yours — all yours. Are 
you not eager to accept it ? Is it not favorable enough ? Is 
it not advantageous enough ? May we not anticipate that 
your heart is beginning to give way before this unparalleled 
offer from your offended God ? Ah, yes, my Sovereign, my 
God, my Father ! Hard as hath been my heart, unfeeling 
as my soul hath been to thee, thy matchless grace hath con- 
quered me. Can you not, ought you not to adopt this lan- 
guage ? We cannot think you mean to go away and con- 
tinue to sin against such a God as this. Oh, think what 
unheard of criminality there must be in rejecting such un- 
heard-of offers of grace, coming warm from the heart of the 
blessed, injured Jehovah, from whom you had nothing to 
expect but death. If his mercy proffers to place you in a 
better situation than if you had never sinned, you place 
yourself in a more deplorable situation by rejecting it than 
if that offer had never been made. In that case, how shall 
you escape ? — not merely because you have sinned, but be- 
cause you have rejected so great salvation. 

2. Oh what, dear brethren ; oh what hath Jesus bouglit 
for you ! If the sentence of condemnation had gone forth 
against you the first moment that you sinned, all heaven 
would have pronounced, and you yourself would have con- 
fessed the sentence just. If you had been merely pardoned, 
and exiled to some distant quarter of God's dominions, ex- 
empted from eternal burnings, and yet exiled forever from 
his face and favor, you would have reason to congratulate 
yourself on the terms you had obtained ; for this would have 



REV. WM. B. WKKD. 105 

been a far more preferable measure than was dealt to myr- 
iads of more exalted beings than you, when they fell from 
their first estate. But yet, miracle of grace! you are placed 
on more advantageous ground than they occupied before 
they fell from their first estate ; your hold on the favor of 
God more secure, because confirmed by the imputed right- 
eousness of the Son of God ; your prospects of future good 
and future glory more secure, because confirmed by the oath 
and promise of God ; your motives to persevere in holiness 
more encouraging, because you have all heaven to help you ; 
your rank in the universe more exalted, because raised from 
the character of a subject to that of a son and heir through 
Christ ; the eternal happiness which is reserved for you more 
transcendent, — because it is to be seasoned with the delicious 
sensations of untold gratitude, — than if you had never sinned. 
And who hath procured all this for you? This expiring 
God hath done it. This dying Lamb hath done it. His 
freely-oifered blood hath done it. In the sore travail of his 
soul, by the endurance of the shame of the cross and the 
bitterness of death, hath he wrought out that better cove- 
nant, which " fixes your station more secure than 'twas be- 
fore you fell." Oh bring those thoughts into melting con- 
tact with your heart ! Let your soul feed on them while you 
are receiving the emblems of your Saviour's death, and then 
remember it is a covenant we have been speaking of; and 
a covenant always supposes two parties, and mutual engage- 
ments on the part of each. One of these parties is your 
Saviour ; and you have seen what he engages to do. You 
are the other ; and what do you engage to do ? What does 
he require you to do ? To love him. That's all. Is it a hard 
requisition? Is it hard to love such a Saviour ? Let us see. 
Let us see how many manifest proofs you v/ill give, before the 
next communion season, that your heart is sensible of that 
Saviour's deserts at your hands. Let us see by how many 
acts of self-denial for his sake, by how many efforts to bring 
sinners to his feet, by how much godly zeal for his honor, 
and by what strenuous exertions to deny ungodliness and 
worldly lusts, and sustain the character of a holy generation, 
a royal priesthood, a peculiar people zealous of good works, 
even as he hath given you commandment ; let us see by how 
many tokens of this description you will show that you love 
the Saviour, whose atoning blood hath placed you, sinners, 
under a better covenant than if you had never sinned. 



106 SERMONS BY THE LATE 



^^Be courteous^ — 1 Pet. iii. 8. 

Can any tell us in what part of the Bible our text is found? 
You perceive it is near the close, and therefore in the ^N'ew 
Testament; but in which book — and who is the author? 
Luke, perhaps, whose original profession as a physician, 
bringing him in contact with all classes of persons, the great, 
the opulent, the polite, might have taught him the value of 
that retinement of manners, of which the courtesy here in- 
culcated is the natural expression. Or it may be the text 
is found in the writings of Paul, who, having begun life 
as a scholar, and lived among the lirst men, the lawyers, the 
doctors, and rabbis of the capital of Palestine, might once 
have acquired an early habit of gentility, and thus been led 
to enforce it as a Christian duty. But no — the precept 
comes from just that one of all the New Testament writers 
whom we should have least expected to concern himself witli 
such a subject. It is found in the 3d chapter and 8th verse 
of the 1st Epistle of Peter ^ the sailor and fisherman, origin- 
ally the roughest — no one who has read the gospels can 
doubt it — the roughest, the rudest, the most unpolished of 
all the disciples of Christ. What then did he know about 
courtesy? From his brother sailors and fishermen, who 
were as rude and unpolished as himself? From his subse- 
quent intercourse, after the family of Christ was broken up 
by his death ? But his intercourse, like the other apostles, 
was mainly confined to the lowest class ; the great, the wise, 
the noble, the leaders of society in influence and fashion, 
stood aloof from them. Where, then, in what school, did 
this ignorant fisherman learn courtesy ? We answer, in the 
school of grace ; for he could have learned it nowhere else. 
It was the Spirit of God that gave him lessons in politeness — 
for he had no other master. From his example, therefore, 
we are entitled to assert that true courtesy is the natural 
product of the Christian rehgion, wherever it takes a practi- 
cal root ; even as his precept authorizes us to enforce it as 
a Christian duty. 

I. Much of what passes current in the world under the 
name of courtesy, stripped of its conventional sanctions, and 
viewed in the naked light, is just the most hollow, hypocriti- 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 107 

cal mummery imaginable. We have read many books which 
profess to teach the art of politeness. They should rather 
be called treatises on the art of making yourself agreeable 
by speaking and acting lies, and the ranker the better. Two 
persons, ignorant of each other's existence five minutes be- 
fore, are introduced by a mutual friend. Now courtesy de- 
mands a warm, mutual grasp of the hand, and a mutual ex- 
pression of strong gratification at the introduction, though 
each knows that the other is lying, and will probably forget 
his existence five minutes after. So courtesy requires one to 
concede certain sui^eriority to those with whom he comes in 
contact. If he is about to enter a room simultaneously with 
another, he must give way to him ; if he speaks of himself 
in connection with another, he must repeat his ow^n name 
last, "he and I:" and, in general, he must treat everybody 
with a certain polite humility, which means just nothing at 
all ; for, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, if these persons 
should consider these acts of courteous deference a proof 
that he really regarded them as his superiors, he would be 
exasperated to the quick. Another specimen of the hypoc- 
risy of courtesy is, that it requires you to extend to every one, 
even to those for whom you feel the utmost contempt and 
disgust, a respectful civility. At home, by your own fireside, 
you may pour out that disgust and contempt to the utmost ; 
but if, at that moment, one of those persons comes in, you 
may, you must be silent in a moment ; you must put on the 
mask, you must be all bows and politeness. Such is courtesy. 
II. And yet who would w^ish to live in a state of society 
from which courtesy was excluded ; where it should be the 
order of the day that every man was to treat his fellow as 
his own natural feelings prompted, unbridled by any conven- 
tional restraints whatever ? It is saying little for human 
nature, but it is saying the truth, that in such a community, 
though there might be law and civil government, there 
would, there could be nothing like the amenities of society. 
The truth is, men are so bad that they cannot be trusted to 
treat each other according to their own natural impulses. 
Hence the necessity of civil law to keep them from mutual 
injuries. Hence the necessity of the laws of courtesy to 
regulate and control their mutual intercourse, to banish from 
it whatever is harsh and unfriendly, and to give it a com- 
plexion of softened, humane cordiality. Now we are not 
saying but to the laws of courtesy, as well as to the laws of 



108 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

the land, many may yield an hypocritical obedience ; still 
society that is worth the name could no more exist without 
the restraints of the former than it could exist at all without 
the restraints of the latter ; and therefore it is better that 
men should obey the one as well as the other in spite of 
themselves — against their nature — than to set them at de- 
fiance. Still it is better that they should obey both volun- 
tarily ; and just as he only is the good citizen, who yields a 
cheerful, cordial submission to the laws of the State, springing 
from an inward genuine principle of loyalty, so he is the only 
real gentleman who obeys the laws of courtesy, not because 
society requires it, not because it is genteel to do so, not 
because he will be voted a churl if he does not ; but because 
it is the spontaneous dictate of his nature — because all that 
courtesy requires is perfectly natural to him. 

III. For true courtesy is no mechanical affair, to be learned 
merely by art. Art, here as elsewhere, may improve nature, 
but cannot supply its deficiencies. One of the most ludi- 
crous, one of the most pitiable spectacles it has ever been our 
lot to witness, is of individuals, who, with none of the natural 
elements of good-breedings have learned its rules from books, 
or copied them from the example of others, and are trying 
to practise them. Vf hat awkward work they make of it — 
what straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel ? at one 
moment st mining politeness to the utmost stretch on the 
minutest points, and at another grossly and glaringly vio- 
lating it on the most important ones. On such persons at- 
tempted courtesy sits as awkwardly as a fashionable garment 
on the person of a clown, or as gold lacquer on rusty iron. 
We would much rather see them act out their nature — be 
what they are — than make themselves ridiculous by trying 
to be what they are not, and see themselves, with all their 
art, outshone in every point of true gentility by individuals 
for whom art has done nothing, who have had no other in- 
structions than the simple promptings of nature. Nature 
alone has made many a gentleman, in the noblest and truest 
sense of the word — art alone, never one. We are not say- 
ing but a pei'son with a fair share of sense, abundant ad- 
vantages, and long practice, may come to act up to all the 
rules of courtesy on every occasion, though it is all mechani- 
cal, hollow-hearted play-acting. But at most he is nothing 
but a perfect counterfeit. The secret of true courtesy, that 
which alone can make it amiable or attractive, is sincerity. 



KEY. WM. B. WEED. 109 

To be sincere it must be the natural, spontaneous expression 
of certain qualities of the heart. We know that courtesy 
being so much in vogue, being made so much account of, 
many who are totally destitute of these qualities attempt to 
practise it ; but we regard them as mere impostors. Imita- 
tion silks and velvets are not real silks and velvets ; mock 
diamonds are not real diamonds ; they are nothing but paste. 

IV. Now it is the province of the Christian religion to 
beget and to cherish precisely those qualities of heart of 
vrhich true courtesy is the natural manifestation. Christi- 
anity, therefore, is the best school of politeness. It polished 
the rude fisherman of Galilee, not as Chesterfield would have 
done, by forming his outward manners on the model of gen- 
tility, but by making his heart the abode of those human- 
izing impulses of which true courtesy is the spontaneous 
fruit. Oar proposition may be understood by a iew specifi- 
cations. 

1. Courtesy, in the general, may be defined a proper con- 
sideration of what is due to others with whom we are thrown 
in contact. Some have called it the art of making one's self 
agreeable ; but the vv^ay to make yourself agreeable to others 
is to show that you care for them, that you have a lively re- 
gard for their feelings, their wishes, &c. A person who, in 
society, acts as if he was the only person there, who must 
have all the talk to himself, who must be accommodated let 
what will become of the rest, who must enjoy himself as he 
pleases, at whatever expense of discomfort or annoyance to 
the rest, is unanimously voted very disagreeable, and very 
ill-bred. The difference between a discourteous and a cour- 
teous person is, that, thrown into the society of one or many, 
the former never forgets himself, and the latter never forgets 
them, but consults their wishes, acts with a due reference to 
their feelings, and their enjoyment, in every thing he does or 
says. Now we are not saying but the most cold-hearted 
person in the world may do this as a mechanical exercise 
learned by rote, just as a parrot may talk if you teach him ; 
but we are saying that a Christian must do it. Courtesy, in 
this general idea of it, is seen in a moment to be one of the 
natural exhibitions of his character. He hath experienced 
that enlargement of heart which forbids self to be the only 
inmate there — which makes him regard himself not as an 
absolute whole, but as part of a whole — which requires him 
to look not only upon his own, but upon the things of others, 

10 



110 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

and to do to others as he would they should do to him. 
That maxim of the Saviour is the very fundamental law of 
courtesy. To treat others just as you would wish them, in 
the same circumstances, to treat you, if it is the least which 
courtesy can be satisfied with, is the utmost it demands. He 
who has that maxim written on his heart as the invariable 
law of his intercourse, may be pronounced awkward and 
ungenteel in the circle of fashion,. but by the verdict of com- 
mon sense he will be adjudged a courteous man, in a sense 
w^hich mere fashion cannot compass. He is a gentleman of 
God's own manufacture. Christianity, therefore, while it 
cures the heart of selfishness, and inspires it with a generous 
concern for our fellow-creatures, and real interest in their 
welfare, lays the foundation for just that considerate regard 
for what is due to others, that respect for the Welshes, the feel- 
ings, the happiness of those with whom we are occasionally 
or habitually associated, which is the essence of courtesy. 

2. Courtesy requires us to treat othei's with a becoming 
deference. A haughty, magisterial deportment, a lofty de- 
meanor, arrogant assumptions of superiority, it utterly pro- 
scribes. You must learn to be modest, respectful, deferen- 
tial, if you would be courteous. And you must be modest, 
respectful, deferential, if you are a Christian. Does not the 
gospel everywhere denounce high-mindedness, and declare 
that he that exalteth himself shall be abased ? Does it not 
enjoin you, in lowliness of mind, to esteem others better 
than yourself — to mind not high things, but condescend to 
men of low estate ? That spirit which can brook no superi- 
ority, which is ever trying to lift the head above everybody — 
that other spirit, still more contemptible, which is lordly as 
a lion to inferiors, and cringing as a jackall to superiors, — both 
of which evince an equal want of breeding and want of 
sense, — find no quarter in the gospel. On the other hand, in 
its cardinal virtue of humility — not the liumiHty of cringing 
manners, but of just self-depreciation — it furnishes the very 
well-spring of that expression of courtesy we are speaking 
of The fashionable rules of good-breeding require you to 
treat others with deference, whether you feel it or not. The 
gospel makes it natural for you to treat them with deference, 
by making you humble. That arrogant condescension, that 
haughty deference, that proud humility which you so often 
witness in those who are trying to be courteous in spite of 
their nature, you never detect in the Christian gentleman 



REV. WM. B. WEED. Ill 

who hath learned of Him who is "meek and lowly in mind." 
His intercourse with others is marked by a condescension 
that is unaiFected, a deference that hath no background of 
loftiness, a modesty which, if it have no smack of manners, 
hath no tinge of self-conceit, and therefore by a courtesy that 
is sincere and real. 

3. But still more particularly, courtesy requires you to 
extend a respectful civility even to strangers and enemies. 
In New England we are aware that the rule is (and it is one 
of the worst features of our social system, a distinctive one 
too, for it obtains in no other part of the nation), that he 
that is a stranger must be a stranger still ; that a person un- 
known to you, whether you meet him by the way, or are the 
joint inmate of a public conveyance with him, must be a 
heathen man and a publican to you, unless and until you are 
introduced. Now this, to say the least of it, is a violation 
of courtesy, which requires you to extend civility to every one 
who falls in your way, and forbids you to treat anybody as 
a stranger, in the sense of estrangement. But Christianity 
requires the same, and forbids the same. It fills the heart 
with a love for our species, which, if it is too rational to open 
the door of sympathy in an equal degree to all, is all too ex- 
pansive to shut it against any. Friend, parent, children, first 
it will embrace, his country next, and next all the human 
race, and constrain him to extend to every one bearing the 
human image that Providence throws in his way, the oftices 
of a kindly courtesy, not because the conventional rules of 
custom require it, but because the promptings of his own 
benevolent heart inspire it. But the highest pitch of polite- 
ness is to be civil to your enemies. "That person had done 
me the grossest injustice, but I showed him no malice after 
it. I treated him just as if nothing had happened." Ah, 
but did you feel no malice ? Did you feel towards him as 
if nothing had happened ? If not, wdiat does your boast 
amount to? See how admirably I played the hypocrite. 
"Well, but I did every thing that courtesy required." 
Granted — but had you been a Christian you W'Ould have 
done more. Common courtesy requires you to be civil to 
your enemies — the gospel requires you to love them. Com- 
mon courtesy forbids you to betray your malice to them 
when they fall in your way — the gospel forbids you to have 
any. Common courtesy permits you to despise and hate 
them, if you only conceal it — the gospel forbids you to 



112 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

despise and hate them at all. It comes to this then — that in 
relation to these two classes — in relation to strangers and 
enemies, the rules of good-breeding require you to be hypo- 
critically courteous, and demand nothing more; the gospel 
requires you, and by its influence on your heart enables you, 
to be sincerely so, and is satisfied with nothing less. 

4. Courtesy forbids all unnecessary harshness and severity 
in our mutual intercourse. It forbids, and utterly proscribes 
every thing that is calculated to inflict unnecessary pain on the 
sensibilities of others. And as Dr. Payson tells us of a certain 
Christian grace which, he says, the devil cannot counterfeit, 
so this feature of courtesy is one which nobody can counter- 
feit perfectly. Conceive a person destitute of the external 
sensation of feeling, such as the ancient poets feigned some 
of their heroes, with a skin on which the sharpest weapons 
could make no wound, on which the severest bruises could 
inflict no pain. Now the fact that a person is incapable of 
being hurt himself, is a reason why we cannot expect him to 
be particularly careful not to hurt others, why we need not 
wonder if he often hurts them without thinking of it. He 
never thinks how sensitive others are to pain — just because 
he knows not what pain is. Well, w^e never knew one who 
was thus destitute of outward, bodily sensibility; but we 
have known many destitute, in a great degree, of the inward 
sensibility of the heart ; and the efiect is the same as in the 
case supposed. They may be drilled in all the schools of 
politeness in the world, yet they never become perfect in 
that most delightful manifestation of courtesy — a tender re- 
gard for others' feelings, just because they have so little ten- 
derness, so httle feeling of their own. With all their pre- 
tensions to politeness, they may wound you to the quick, 
and set your sensibilities all a-bleeding, w^ithout the least 
intention, without the slightest thought that they are giving 
you pain. Why should they think so? The same things 
would give no pain to them. The truth is, nobody can main- 
tain a consistent and habitual obedience to the law of cour- 
tesy we are now considering, without the indispensable 
requisite of a tender heart ; a heart whose own fine sensi- 
bilities instinctively tell him what is due to the feelings of 
others, and instinctively shrink from wounding them. Now 
such a heart is the natural product of the Christian religion. 
'' I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and will give 
you a heart of flesh." A person may be originally unfeel- 



REV. WM. B. WEKD. 113 

ing as adamant towards both God and man, but the moment 
the Spirit of the gospel hath made his heart tender and sus- 
ceptible towards the Father of his spirit, it will flow out in 
tenderness towards his fellow-creatures. A harsh, unfeeling, 
cold-hearted disciple of the Lamb of God ! What an ab- 
surdity ! The disciple of Chi-ist hath the spirit of Christ, 
one of whose most lovely characteristics was a childlike ten- 
derness of sensibility. He had it naturally ; but his Spirit 
grafts it on all who are grafted into him. That delicate 
regard then for the sensibilities of others, that habitual av- oid- 
ance of every thing that is likely to pain or wound them, which 
is one of the essential features of true courtesy, is one of the 
essential accomplishments of the true Christian, whom the 
gospel by its influence makes, and by its precepts requires to 
be, tender hearted. 

I. And now if we have said enough to show that true 
courtesy is the natural product of the principles of the gos- 
pel, then we would ask. Is not here a striking specimen ot 
the peculiar glory of the gospel, that it is calculated to make 
men what they ought to be ? It is the verdict of society 
that men must be courteous towards each other. The gos- 
pel makes them so. Conceive of a community living on a 
barren soil, totally unfavorable to vegetable growth. But 
health, and protection from the burning sun, require that 
they should have shade-trees. They will not grow there 
spontaneously. They must be transplanted from the forest ; 
and they require incessant care and attention to keep them 
alive ; and, after all, they are so unthrifty, that the most that 
can be said of them is, that they are better than nothing at 
all. But what now if God's original act of creation were re- 
peated there, and the formation of a new, a rich, and fertile 
soil takes place, stored with the seeds of every tree, of fruit 
and shade, which at once start up in a vigorous growth ; and 
the protecting shade, which hitherto had been but scantily 
procured by incessant care and labor, is now the abundant 
and spontaneous product of nature. Obviously this is the 
most efibctual method to provide for the peculiar want of 
that community; though, of course, it is a method which 
demands the agency of Omnipotence. ^N'ow experience has 
long since found the necessity of some means to protect the 
members of society from the natural eflects of each other's 
selfishness. One of these means is the rules of courtesy, 
whose object is to correct men's natural indiflerence and self- 

10* 



114: SERMONS BY THE LATE 

ish unconcern for their fellow-creatures, and make them act 
as if they felt an interest, a considerate regard, for each other. 
For other ends the rules of courtesy enforce upon us a prac- 
tical benevolence in our mutual intercourse. And because 
men are so selfish, benevolence, good-will to men, in any 
shape, is so unnatural to them; hence the reason why there 
are so many courteous hypocrites; hence the reason why 
many are so long in learning the rules of courtesy, and many 
more so awkward for life in practising them. In a w^ord, 
the claims of courtesy, and their rigorous enforcement in any 
civilized community, are just an attempt to substitute a 
counterfeit benevolence as the law of intercourse where the 
real is wanting; to force the blessed growth of benevolence, 
or at least its semblance, in the barren soil of human selfish- 
ness ; because it is seen that without something of the kind, 
without some such protecting shade, every plant of social 
comfort must perish there. But the gospel breaks up that 
soil of selfishness, and turns it into a soil of benevolence, and 
thus makes all the gentle humanities of courtesy spontaneous 
there ; not the sickly plants of a hot-bed, but the vigorous 
growth of nature. If, then, the well-being of society de- 
mands the interchange of mutual courtesy, the gospel alone 
can answer that demand. Yes, my hearers, you may fre- 
quent the first schools of politeness, you may get its rules by 
heart, you may practise them for years, and yet, after all, 
utterly fail of learning the art of pleasing. The only school 
in which you can become really amiably, lovelily, because 
heartily and unaffectedly polite, is the school of Christ. The 
courtesy that is learned by art, in its highest perfection, is 
but a skeleton, a corpse. It never becomes a warm, living 
thing of attractive loveliness, till the spirit of the gospel hath 
been breathed into it. 

II. Dear brethren, if these things are true, it follows that 
an uncourteous Christian is an unchristian Christian. Harsh 
language, a rude manner, rough treatment, disregard for the 
feelings of others, are no more contrary to the laws of good- 
breeding than to the law, the example, and the spirit of 
Christ. On the other hand, a respectful deference to the 
persons and to the wishes of your fellow-creatures, a consid- 
erate regard for what is due to them, a cordial deportment 
to all, to the stranger and the enemy as well as the friend, 
and a careful abstaining from wounding the sensibilities of 
any — if courtesy requires them, the benevolence of the gos- 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 115 

pel bears them as its own natural fruits. And think how 
mightily they serve to recommend the gospel. A sour, un- 
social Christian may be an angel in piety, but his external 
manner makes him an angel with a flaming sword to keep 
men from the paradise of salvation. On the other hand, as 
it is true generally that the influence which a man exerts in 
society depends far more upon his heart than upon his head, 
even so those hearty exhibitions of Christian courtesy, as 
they cannot fail to make you amiable, so will they make the 
gospel which you profess, and of which they are the legiti- 
mate ofishoots, amiable. Think not, then, those external 
proprieties of little consequence. Many a man of sterling 
wisdom and goodness has been shunned and derided for the 
want of them ; many a fool has become a universal favorite 
simply by pursuing them. True, they belong to the surface, 
but the surface is all of you that men can see, and from w^hich 
they form their whole estimate of you. For the sake, then, 
of your influence as Christians, for the sake of recommending 
the gospel you profess, in order to be amiable as men and 
women, and consistent as disciples of Christ, in your families 
and in society, at home and abroad, to the stranger and 
to the foe, as well as to the companion and the friend, be 
courteous ; not in the hypocritical style of the world, but 
in the manifestation of that generous, sincere, and cordial 
courtesy which is the spontaneous growth of the heart of 
grace, watered by the Spirit, and warmed by the Sun of 
Righteousness. 



"y^ must he horn againV — John iii. 7. 

When God the lawgiver spoke to man in his earliest per- 
sonal communication, the subject of his first utterance was 
his own sovereign and extensive claim as the one Lord of 
all. When God the Saviour spoke to man in his earliest per- 
sonal exhibition of those great truths w^hich constitute the 
remedial system of the gospel, the first doctrine to which he 
gave utterance was that of the new birth, regeneration. Is 
there not a peculiar appositeness in either case? When, 
after those three days of solemn preparation, all Israel stood 
before the mount on which the glory of God was visibly 



116 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

restinix, when at leno-th that breathless silence was broken, 
as if by an articulate thunder-peal forth issuing from that 
cloud of glory, see you not in the first dread accents which 
it emits, — " I am the Lord thy God, that brought thee out of 
the land of Egypt, and out of the house of bondage ; thou 
shalt have no other gods before me," — the appropriate foun- 
dation — that which gave meaning, and force, and weight to 
every part of that legislative system he was about to pro- 
mulgate? For, of all the moral precepts, all the civil ordi- 
nances and ceremonial rites which he delivered to Israel, 
where w^ould have been the binding force and sanction with- 
out the knowledge and the practical recognition of the great 
fundamental truth, that he from whom those precepts and 
ordinances emanated, w^as the one, the only Lord God to 
whom their supreme obedience w^as due. 

So, when in this nightly interview wdth one who had con- 
ceived, from his miraculous exploits, a sufficient interest in 
him to desire to know him better, but w^ho had not, as yet, 
sufficient moral courage to visit him by daylight, the Son of 
God interrupts the courtly flattery of the ruler of the Jews 
wdth an exposition of the cardinal points of the scheme of 
salvation, when h« announces as the very first point, "Verily, 
verily, I say mito thee, except a man be born again he can- 
not see the kingdom of God" — is it not his evident purpose 
to exhibit the foundation-stone of that scheme, considered in 
its practical relations to mankind ? As if he had said, " In 
order to be saved, in order to become a citizen, to have a 
right to the prerogatives, and a share in the immunities of 
that kingdom of grace which heaven, through me, is about 
to inaugurate on earth, and whose complete development is 
to take place in heaven itself, the first requisite is regenera- 
tion. Ye must be born again, or be a stranger to all that is 
meant by salvation. Ye must be born again, or have no 
place in the visible kingdom and church of God, except as a 
blind or dead man in an ordinary society — unfit to enjby its 
privileges or to perform its duties. You must be born again, 
or the gate of heaven itself must be forever bolted and 
barred against thee." 

This, then, is our doctrine. Let the following similitude 
make it clear to your minds. You have a large body of waste 
land, yielding nothing but thorns and briers. How shall it 
be reclaimed and made productive ? It must be cleared of 
its stones and scrub-growth ; it must be ditched and drained, 



RKV. WM. B. WEED. 117 

manured and tilled; these are requisite to save, to restore it 
from its present wortliless state, and make it prolific of use- 
ful products. But there is another thing which is indispen- 
sable to all those requisites — and that is money, capital. 
There can be no clearing, or ditching, or draining, or what 
not, without it. So what we are at present to insist upon 
is this : that to every thing that is requisite to save the 
soul from guilt and restore it from ruin, regeneration is in- 
dispensable : that the requisite means, the requisite capital 
for carrying into effect all and every condition on which the 
salvation of the soul depends, can alone be supplied by the 
new birth — the new heart, which is the offspring of God's 
renewing Spirit. 

I. Regeneration is indispensable in order to remove the 
grand, original, fundamental obstacle to salvation, and fore- 
runner of damnation, the depravity of the human heart. 
By a similar law to that which forbids a stream to rise 
higher than its source, or the fruit to be different and supe- 
rior to the quality of the tree, we are all morally so many 
Eves and Adams; not in the state in which they were cre- 
ated, but in the state into which they fell. 'No part of the 
catechism has been more carped at than that which teaches 
that all mankind sinned in their first progenitor, and fell with 
him in his first transgression. ISTow nobody imagines that 
the whole human race ate of the same literal specimen of 
forbidden fruit, committed the same original act of sin and 
revolt from God that Adam did — but the meaning is that 
we virtually sinned in him ; that in view of our relation to 
him, the effect of his transgression on our moral nature, and 
our course of moral action, is just the same as if we had 
literally sinned in him, and literally fallen with him. Con- 
ceive that Benedict Arnold, after his treason, had begotten 
a son who, from his earliest childhood, had manifested an in- 
stinctive disposition to betray his country and strengthen 
the hands of her enemies. The shortest way of explaining 
the phenomenon Avould be to say that he sold himself to the 
enemy in his father, and played the traitor with him — mean- 
ing that he has inherited from him that peculiar trait of de- 
pravity which prompts him to act just like him — just as if 
he had been alive at the time of the paternal treason, and 
literally conspired in it. Now specific and exceptional traits 
of depravity are not necessarily transmissive from father to 
son; but general depravity is. The moral, as. well as the 



118 SERMONS BY TMK LATE 

physical image of the parent, is reproduced in his offspring, 
and by the same general law; and hence it comes to pass 
that, having inherited the flillen nature of our first parent, 
we, by voluntarily yielding to its promi^tings, do just as he 
did— just as if we had all been his literal contemporaries, and 
literally shared his sin original. Like him, at the bidding of 
infernal or of human tempters, we are ever ready to stretch 
forth our hand to grasp, and open our mouths to gorge for- 
bidden fruit. Not the literal apple which Adam ate, but 
thmgs, objects, as strictly contraband by the fiat of heaven, 
are the habitual provender, the daily food of every unre- 
newed man. Like him too, we are ever ready to set up our 
mclinations in opposition to the law of God, and our will 
as paramount to his. And thus assimilated to our first 
parent in moral character, in the depravity that pours con- 
tempt on his sovereign statute-book, and lives and revels in 
bold transgression against his throne, we are involved in the 
same condemnation. "Li the day thou eatest, in the day 
thou sinnest, thou shalt surely die," was denounced to him, 
and IS denounced to us who have faithfully copied his example. 
Death, not salvation, divine wrath, not divine favor, inflexi- 
ble hostihty, not reconciliation, is what we have to look for 

is all we have to look for from a God too just to wink at sin, 
and too holy not to hate it, as long as we retain the sin- 
tamted nature, which, never ceasing to defy him, he never 
ceases to frown upon and mark for vengeance. Now how 
shall this prime, original obstacle to the favor and peace of 
God— to salvation, which includes both— how shall it be re- 
moved? And we answer in the words of the text, "Ye 
must be born again." The fatal moral taint which accom- 
panied our origmal birth, must be removed by a new birth. 
In plam words, the corrective must be as thorough and far- 
reachmg as the evil. You cannot cure a disease of the vitals 
by external ai^plications. You cannot cure a disease of the 
root by tnmmmg and pruning the branches. A superficial 
evil may be cured by superficial means. A radical disease 
requires a radical remedy. A sinful nature can never be 
otherwise, except by being revolutionized. A sinful heart 
can never cease to be, except by being practically made over 
again, on a different pattern. And this radical change— this 
new heart— is the righteous duty of every human being to 
bring about the one and to acquire the other— for God re- 
quires it— and what are his requirements but righteous duties ? 



KEY. WM. E. WEED. 



119 



But none of them have ever done it, and never would ; and 
God seeino- and foreseeincr this, has taken the matter mto his 
own hands, and employed his Spirit to be the agent of this 
chano-e— the parent of this second birth. For see you that 
God puts forth his special and immediate energy only to^ac 
compUsh ends which it is morally or physically impossible 
should be effected otherwise. He created the world by the 
word of his power, because, in the nature of the case, it 
could be created in no other way. He performed the founda- 
tion-work of the world's redemption by the death of Christ, 
because, in view of the principles of his divine government, 
it could be saved in no other way. He employs the direct 
efficiency of his Spirit to w^ork a radical change m the moral 
nature of man, in the bent and tendency of his moral disposi- 
tions and appetites, and thus remove the grand obstacle to the 
availability of that redemption, because, m view of man's 
inveterate depravity and strength of sinful attachment, that 
change can be effected, that obstacle can be removed, m no 

other way. . , 

n. Reo-eneration is indispensable m order to the due per- 
formance'^of the specific conditions of salvation. In other 
words, one must be born again in order to comply with the 
P'ospel terms on which alone we can be saved. 

1 One of these terms, or conditions, is thus expressed : 
'' Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be^ saved." 
This, as we recently explained, means a sincere, candid, 
hearty trusting, committing, and consigning <>^* S^^^^^y iS?/,^ 
to the meritorious righteousness of an atoning Christ. Witli 
the heart man believeth unto salvation. This saving faith is 
not an assent of the understanding merely, or a conviction 
of the conscience merely, but a cheerful, voluntary exercise 
of the heart. But what sort of a heart does it require to 
exercise it ? Will any sort of a heart answer the purpose f 
Why then do not all men and devils savmgly believe m 
Christ ^ They all have a heart— such as it is. Indeed, look 
at some of the Scripture predicates of this feith and you see 
in a moment it can be no legitimate progeny of the natural 
heart of man. It is pleasing to God. This is the obvious 
implication when we are told that without faith it is impos- 
sible to please him. But what exercise of a heart all-depraved 
and unholy can be pleasing to the holy One ? Any such ex- 
ercise must of course partake of the nature of the source from 
which it emanates, that is, it must be sinful; and theretoie, 



120 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

if it is pleasing God, he must be pleased with that which is 
essentially and necessarily the object of his severest displeas- 
ure — which is a contradiction. 

Again, the heart is purified by faith. Can any exercise of 
a totally sinful heart, thus purify it ? Can a heart that is all 
corrupt furnish the means of its own purgation ? Can the 
foul sewer supply the means of its own cleansing ? Contains 
that miry pool any element which can turn it into a limpid 
spring ? Indeed, the very fact that faith is made an instru- 
mental condition of salvation, of itself demonstrates that no 
man in his natural state of original depravity can ever exer- 
cise it. For if he could, he might be at the same time in 
his original state of depravity, a child of wrath ; and in a 
state of salvation, a child of God ; which is another contra- 
diction. 

What then ? if it be impossible that the thorn-bush should 
produce grapes, it must be turned into a grape-vine in order 
to produce them. If it be impossible that the thistle should 
yield figs, it must be turned into a fig-tree in order to yield 
them. If it be impossible that the natural heart should give 
birth to saving faith, it must be changed into such a heart as 
will give birth to it, before that saving faith can be exer- 
cised. In plain words, the faith that receives Christ the 
Saviour in his various offices, and instates the soul among 
the sons^of God, is a fruit of regeneration, is one of the nat- 
ural outgoings of a heart which has felt the new- creating 
power of the Holy Ghost, turning its stone to flesh, its sinful 
proclivities to holy ones, its enmity to God to love. With 
such a heart as you have by nature you may exercise the 
faith of devils ; that is, you may believe, as undoubted facts, 
all that is revealed of God in Christ; you may tremble at 
him as such, and hate him as such ; but to exercise the heart- 
purifying, God-pleasing, Christ-receiving, enlivening, and em- 
bracing faith, that blots your name from heaven's black-list 
of condemnation and writes it in its book of life, you must 
have a moral nature, an inner man that can legitimately give 
it birth, — and that must be the moral opposite of your pres- 
ent one. ''Ye must be born again." 

2. The same holds true, as to the other instrumental con- 
dition of salvation — repentance. Here, again, it is granted 
there is a repentance which needs no new birth in order to 
produce it ; which is just as natural to natural man as sin 
itself. Self love is a universal principle in all and every class 



KEY. AVM. B. WEED. 121 

of being. It is more intense in the sinner than in any other 
class of beings, because it is the only love he has ; his tyrant 
affection which has eaten out, eaten up all his nobler affec- 
tions to God and man, and grown proportionably portly and 
gigantic by their consumption. Hence, whatsoever runs 
counter to this tyrant affection, whatsoever threatens to in- 
terfere with, or mortify, this selfish lust of ha23piness (for 
that is the definition of a sinner's self-love), is necessarily 
an object of repugnance, regret, or sorrow, as the case may 
be. Thus let the glimmerings of the wrath which is reveal- 
ed from heaven against all unrighteousness, steal in upon his 
conscience and brighten up the conviction there that the 
wages of his sins is death, and it is perfectly natural that he 
should be bitterly sorry to have incurred such a doom, so 
repugnant to all the impulses of his self-love. Yet without 
the slightest abatement of his love of sin, or the slightest 
disposition to renounce his sinful courses. So may the pirate, 
who, in attacking a rich prize or what was hoped to be so, 
receives a cannon-shot that sends his vessel to the bottom 
and barely escapes with his life, be bitterly sorry for the loss 
to which his piratical business has subjected him, but with- 
out the least disposition to relinquish that business ; with 
the full determination to pursue it again, the moment he is 
in circumstances to do so. So may the swindler or the 
forger, who has been caught in the act and caged in jail, 
lament in sackcloth the grievous consequences that have 
flowed from his dishonest practices, without being at all 
weaned from them, but with the full intention to renew them 
the moment he regains his liberty. - But the sorrow, the re- 
pentance which arises solely from the contemplated conse- 
quences of sin, and leaves the love of sin unchanged, and the 
practice of sin unchecked, has no saving virtue in it. If it 
had, we repeat, as in the former case, the worst of sinners, 
yea, the worst of devils, might be in a state of salvation. 

But that repentance which is unto life, includes a just con- 
ception of the evil of sin as it stands related to God as well 
as to ourselves, a thorough hatred of it, and an honest pur- 
pose to forsake its downward road for the ways of holy obe- 
dience. " It is a saving grace whereby a sinner, out of a 
true sense of his sin and apprehension of the mercy of God 
in Christ, doth with grief and hatred of his sin turn from it 
unto God, with full purpose of and endeavor after new obe- 
dience." But how^ can the unaltered child of depravity thus 

11 



122 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

repent ? How can he have just conceptions of sin as it 
affects the welfare of a universe for which he cares not half 
so much as for his own, and the rights and sovereignty of a 
God for whom he cares nothing at all ? Can he hate with 
all his heart the sin which he loves better than his soul ? or 
forsake the sinful pursuits which all the inclinations of his 
nature bid him follow, for the strait and narrow path of obe- 
dience to God on which all the inclinations of his nature bid 
him turn his back ? No, dear hearer ; to do this requires 
aifections, impulses of such a generous comprehensiveness of 
scope, and of such a pure and unselfish pattern, as are no 
part of your original nature ; are only born with the new 
birth. You may repent, like Judas, with a sorrow that only 
tempts you to sin the more in order to drown it — with a 
depraved, unhumbled heart like his. To repent like David, 
or like Peter, with a godly sorrow which shall make you the 
sworn enemy of sin for life, and as thoroughly in love with 
God and holiness, you must have a heart like theirs, a clean 
heart and a right spirit, created in you by the gracious Spirit 
of God. '' Ye must be born again." 

III. Regeneration is indispensable to the success of all the 
ordinary means by which the salvation of the soul is fur- 
thered and promoted. The field that here opens is too 
wide to be thoroughly explored at the close of a sermon. 
For these means include the whole range of divine provi- 
dence in its relation to each individual ; and the whole mass 
of divine truth, every event in the life of every man, every 
word of the Bible, every opportunity to read or hear it, are 
so many divinely-intended means to loosen the soul from 
earth and impel it towards its father God and towards its 
native skies. But these means are all inoperative with the 
carnal mind ; and the reason is, that the carnal mind is sworn 
and inveterate enmity to God. Thus all that is endearing, 
winning, humbling in his providential arrangements, can 
neither inspire it with love nor school it in submission ; but 
in the face of either, it still maintains, Pharaoh-like, the same 
unyielding attitude of stern defiance, saying, " Who is the 
Lord, that I should fear him." Just as that briny sea into 
which the thousand Hmpid or turbid, sweet or brackish 
streams of all earth's continents and islands have been flow- 
ing, and on which the rains of heaven have been descending, 
and its gentle breezes and its lashing tempests blowing, with- 
out effecting any modification of its original nature, without 



KEV. WM. B. WEED. 123 

changing it in aught from that same briny, restless, resist- 
less mass of water that took possession of the world's great 
deep, when the world began — so upon that untamed speci- 
men of human depravity let the providence of God flow in, 
in streams of good or in streams of evil, and breathe upon it 
in the auspicious breezes of prosperity, or lash it with the 
fiercest tempests of adversity, still, still unyielding in its 
pride of might, that untamed depravity finds means to neu- 
tralize all these influences, and unchanged, immodified, un- 
aflTected by them all, the man still remains the same troubled 
sea that cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt, the 
same unqualified enemy of God ; loving him none the more 
for all his goodness, hating him none the less for all his se- 
verity. ISTot till the radical change is efiected in him by 
which that enmity is slain, and the paternal relation of God 
is recognized, and the love of God becomes regent of his 
heart — not till then will the sanctifying power of providence 
be realized, the goodness of God be food for his filial spirit 
to grow by, and the chastisements of the Lord make him 
partaker of his holiness. 

And who are they in relation to whom the Saviour prays, 
" Sanctify them through thy truth ?" The native children 
of Adam, all blind and dead in their original depravity ? 
No ; but his own disciples, — of whom he says in the pre- 
ceding verse, " They are not of the world, even as I am not 
of the world." Man must be regenerated by the Spirit be- 
fore he can be sanctified through the truth. Yes, "the nat- 
ural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, nei- 
ther can he know them, because they are spiritually dis- 
cerned." His natural taste may delight in the poetry of the 
Bible, his natural conscience may sanction the pure morality 
of the Bible, his natural understanding may affirm the pro- 
found philosophy and the divine jurisprudence of the Bible ; 
but his natural heart is all insensible to those Bible exhibi- 
tions of Deity, in the beauty of his love and the glory of his 
grace, by the spiritual contemplation of which the soul is 
made partaker of God and assimilated to his likeness. As 
when the traveller tells us that on enterino- one of those sub- 
terranean 'temples, filled with the wonders of old Egypt, he 
saw^ nothing there but the dim outlines of objects, which 
gave no idea of the reality, till the attendant kindled the 
torches and lighted up the scene ; then burst upon his sight 
those astonishing specimens of architecture, those columns 



124 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

which looked as if they had been reared to support the sky, 
those mighty statues Avhich looked as if they had been copied 
from Anakims, which he gazed upon till his mind seemed 
to grow gigantic with the contemplation, — so fares it with 
thenatural man, amidst the wonders of divine truth, till the 
Spirit of God gives him new light to see by, and new eyes 
to see, and a new heart to feel. Then bursts the transcend- 
ent vision on his soul, of God in Christ reconciling the world 
to himself, love all-unparalleled streaming in atoning blood, 
breathing in pardoning grace, speaking in the kind tones 
that pronounce the acquittal of the guilty and proffer eternal 
life to the chief of sinners ; — a vision whose contemplation 
ravishes his eyes, and feasts his heart, and changes him from 
glory to glory. In a word, it is vain to sow the rock, to 
present instructing or profitable views to the bhnd, or food 
to the dead. The native sinner is, in a moral sense, all these. 
The rock must be softened into an appropriate soil, before 
the seeds of divine truth can fructify therein. The blind 
eyes must be opened, before they can take in the sanctifying 
beauties of divine truth. The dead must be made alive, the 
sinner must be born again, before he can desire and enjoy 
the sincere milk of the word and grow thereby into a perfect 
man in Christ, a ripe candidate for salvation. 

1. "How%" saith Nicodemus, "can a man be born when 
he is old ?" He no doubt thought it a staggering question ; 
but let us ask another which is still more so. How can one per- 
form the duties and functions of a man without beinor born 
at all? Yet this is what many, we fear, are trying, in a 
moral sense, to do. They have been baptized, and they 
think that regeneration ; as if drops of water, or the hand, 
or the will of the man that administers it, could change the 
heart, or cause the soul to be born anew. Or, they expe- 
rienced at one time a certain seriousness when their minds 
were sobered, for a season, with eternal realities ; and this 
they think regeneration. But they never felt the Him- 
alayan burden of a sinful nature crushing tliem to the earth, 
and forcing from them the agonizing supplication — " Create 
in me a clean heart, and rene^v a right spirit within me !" 
And so they are trying to be Christians without a Chris- 
tian's heart, and to perform the duties of such Avithout a 
Christian's love ; trying to serve a Christ for whom they 
have no sympathy; trying to get sanctiii cation out of a 
Bible for which they care not half so much as for that news- 



EEV. WM. B. WEED. 125 

paper or that novel ; tryinc:, in a word, to live without being 
born. Brethren, "let God be true, and every man a liar." 
If the great change of which the Saviour speaks has not 
passed over us, if old things have not passed away and all 
things become new, all the best influences in this world, or 
in any other, can never make us meet for heaven. We may 
have certain habits, certain tastes, certain sentimentalisms, 
which we call religion — but not that religion whose spirit is 
holiness, whose sum is Christ, whose end is salvation. The 
beginning of that is regeneration. The natal hour of that 
is when we are born asrain. 

2. May the Spirit of God impress these words of his Son 
on all this dying congregation ! You perceive that though 
he had but one hearer present, he uses the plural number, 
u Ye" — for the whole world of his contemporaries and the 
Avorld of the future, the world that then was and the world 
that now is, was all before him. To one and all, to the de- 
cent Pharisee and the shameless sinner of his own time, to 
the decent moralist and the most thorough-going child of 
Satan in our own, these things saith the Son of God-?-" Ye 
must be born again." Hearest thou? You read your 
Bible — it is well. You frequent the sanctuary — it is well. 
You shun outbreaking sins, and study to maintain an unex- 
ceptionable moral deportment — it is well ; but it is not sal- 
vation. No, nor the beginning of it. It is at best but the 
righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, against whom 
heaven has inexorably barred her gates. But not one step 
wilt thou take in the righteousness of God, in the w'ay of 
life, till thou art found suing, a supplicant, to him w^ho 
maketh all things new, to mould that heart of thine after his 
own pattern of righteousness and true holiness. Then only 
w^ill the powder of depravity be broken in thee. Then only 
wilt thou shed the tears of a penitent, and exercise the faith 
of a believer. Then only wilt thou be within reach of the 
sanctifying power of God's truth and providence. Then 
only wilt thou be invested with the right to be called a son, 

and to see the kingdom of God. 

11* 



126 SERMONS BY THE LATE 



^^Who is like unto tliee^ Lord, among the gods? Who is 
like thee, glorious in holiness." — Ex. xv. 11. 

In investigating a subject which carries us beyond the 
soundings of reason, beyond the depth of unaided under- 
standing, it is always desirable to have some well-known ex- 
ample to which we may refer by way of illustration, and 
which, by its affinities and points of resemblance, may ren- 
der that intelligible which otherwise were incompreliensible. 
This is peculiarly needful in investigating the attributes of 
God. For, being all infinite, shoreless, fathomless, they 
would bewilder the mind and baffle its powers with their 
awful incomprehensibility, but for the living example of 
them which has been given to the world in God's incar- 
nate Son. Divine revelation naturally divides itself into two 
departments — what God is, and what he requires of man ; 
and in that most perfect form of revelation which is given in 
the gospel, Christ, the last, greatest prophet of our God, is 
the organ in both departments. He reveals to us our duty 
in his teachings. He reveals to us our God in himself. In 
reply to the question. What must I do as a subject of God ? 
he delivered many sermons, and dictated many others to his 
disciples; but in reply to the question. What is the God 
with whom I have to do ? he only answered : Look at me. 
"He that seen me hath seen the Father." Wherefore, in 
directing your minds to-day to the subject of God's holiness, 
we desire at the same time to direct your eyes to him who 
brought down from heaven, not the mere transcript, not the 
mere copy, but the living verity, the essential brightness of 
the Father's holiness, and flashed it, in its mild glories, before 
the eyes of man, in the displays of a character in which is 
shown all that is nobly pure and serenely beautiful in infinite 
moral rectitude, without a spot or wrinkle of imperfection. 
Let him be the landmark to assist and guide you through 
the representations of this discourse; and let the abstract 
truth which shall be delivered respecting the holiness of 
God, be fixed and familiarized in your mind by a constant 
reference to that friend and brother whom ye know so well ; 
" who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners." 



REV. WM. B. WEEB. 127 

We define the holiness of God to be a perfect and unpol- 
hited freedom from evil. This, like every other general defi- 
nition, is of course imperfect ; but our meaning will be more 
fully developed as we proceed. And I remark — 

I. This attribute of God is abundantly revealed in his 
works. The first idea of God wdiich we derive from his 
visible works, is the power displayed in creating them out of 
nothing. The next is the wisdom displayed in their har- 
monious order and skilful construction. But there is still a 
third, which, though not obvious to unenlightened minds, is 
yet distinctly asserted in Scripture. "The Lord," says the 
Psalmist, "is holy in all his works." "God," says another, 
whose writings often approach wonderfully near to the spirit 
of inspiration, " God made the country, and man made the 
town." And we know of nothins; more calculated to im- 
press us with the contrast between sinful man and a holy 
God, than just to turn from those scenes where human mind 
and human passions have had full scope to do their best and 
their worst, to those where the footsteps of divinity alone 
are seen. Go into the crowded city, and survey its scenes of 
dissipation, its haunts of sin; watch the strife, the ambi- 
tion, the clash of conflicting interests and excited passion in 
the eager pursuit of business — the poverty which begs in 
vain — the crime which defieth God and man — the thousand 
forms of selfishness, which make the heart sicken at the deg- 
radation of man ; and then go and bury thyself in the seclu- 
sion of that forest-landscape where no trace of man or his 
works is seen, and say, can ye not understand us — some of 
you can, we trust — when we say it is like passing from a 
reeking furnace of sin into a tabernacle of holiness. What 
is there there to excite a sinful emotion — a wicked thought? 
Not the pure azure of the sky, assuredly. Not those clear 
streams, to which man himself hath given the name of purity. 
Xot the still landscape, smiling beneath the light of heaven, 
Avhich exhilarates the mind with its cheerful aspect, and 
pleases it with a hundred images of beauty, and presents not 
one that panders to a single sinful appetite. Man, mingling 
with his species, finds a hundred ever-present excitements 
to his sinful propensities. Among the grand and beautiful 
works of God, he finds not one. If he indulges the break- 
ing forth of the hell of depravity within him, there he finds 
no fuel to feed it. The tendency of every thing he sees is 
to counteract it. The holy calm that breathes around bids 



128 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

every fierce, tumultuous passion cease; nor is there any 
medicine which can be prescribed to a mind harrassed by the 
vexations, and perverted by the temptations, to which inter- 
course with the world gives rise, more eiFectual than a re- 
tired and still communion with the native works of God. 
Like oil on the troubled sea, it soothes it — calms it — makes 
it better. I speak not here of that affected sensibility which 
makes many grown-up children fall in love with retired cot- 
tages, and green fields, and still forests, from a mere impulse 
of fashionable romance. No, but all the works of God are 
beautiful. Xow the connection between natural and moral 
beauty has long been observed ; and he who has a heart to 
feel the intrinsic beauty associated with all the w^orks of na- 
ture, will find that beauty mei^ into his soul with a purifying 
power. There is a hallowing influence in the virgin scenery 
of nature to which none but the most callous can be insen- 
sible. " The groves were God's first temples," and it may 
well be doubted whether the most appropriate temple which 
the hand of man ever erected, sanctified though it be to God, 
and consecrated by the invited presence of the Trinity, is 
more fraught with those associations which help devotion 
than the still grove, or the solemn forest, which God hath 
sanctified to himself, and which the touch of man hath never 
polluted. The Saviour taught in the city, but he went into 
the mountain to pray. But if such be the tendency, the 
silent influence of God's works, — to still the passions of the 
soul by their peaceful power, to purify it by their contem- 
plated beauties, and by their associations to counteract its 
sinful propensities and assist its devotional feelings and holy 
exercises, — then, if the just connection between cause and 
effect be admitted, there can be no doubt as to the moral 
character of him who made them ; and that the greatness of 
power not only, and the infinity of wisdom not only, but the 
reflected beauty of holiness shine through the works of God. 
II. The w^ord of God declares his holiness. It is not 
merely that it informs us that holiness is the favorite name 
which the Divine Being hath given to himself; it is not 
merely that it informs us that holiness, with an emphatic, 
triple repetition, is ascribed to him by the heavenly worship- 
pers ; it is because itself is so holy. The law, that like pro- 
duces like, is a law of mind as Avell as matter. Just as a 
man's children, which are the offspring of his body, partake 
of its form and shape and features, even so a man's writings, 



REV. AVM. B. AVEED. 129 

which are the offspring of his mind, if they are of a nature 
to give room for it, are full of the impress of his moral char- 
acter. Who can read the misanthropic and licentious writ- 
ings of Byron, and mistake the dark, polluted fountain from 
which they flowed ? And who can read the pure, transpar- 
ent poetry of Cowper, without feeling that he is conversing 
with a mind baptized from heaven ? Now, the grand evi- 
dence that this is no earthly book, is the same which con- 
vinced the three disciples that they who talked with Jesus 
on the mount were no earthly beings. It wears a moral 
brightness of garb and dress which is not of this world. It 
shows us the Divine Being incapable of evil himself, and 
hating it in any other, enthroning virtue at his own right 
hand, and driving shi to his eternal prison. It shows him 
fighting against sin with the weapons of his providence, and 
the denunciations of his mouth ; and, when every other 
means availed not, drowning it in the blood of Jesus. It 
reveals a law which the apostle, even when he felt that it 
condemned him, could not but pronounce to be holy ; a law 
which needs but to be obeyed on earth to bring back the 
days of Eden ; nay, which, if it could penetrate in its legiti- 
mate power to hell, would convert Satan into an archangel, 
and all his associate fiends to seraphs. It reveals a gospel 
intended to accomplish what the law could not, and with a 
superadded power, and with more potential weapons, to hunt 
the abominations of sin as enemies from earth, or nail them 
as victims to the cross. In fine, its holiness is sufficiently 
proved by the fact, that it has more enemies in the world, it 
has been condemned oftener, forbidden to be read oftener, 
and burned oftener than any book that was ever written. 
Such treatment, in a world of sin, is sufficiently decisive of 
its character. Men do not treat a bad book so. And, as 
we said before, its character is decisive of his, of whose 
mind and heart it is at once the transcript. The skill, the 
inimitable contrivance displayed in his works, no more pro- 
claim his infinite wnsdom, than the perfect purity that 
breathes through his word, always on the side of virtue, 
and always wielding the sword of extermination against sin, 
bespeaks his perfect holiness. 

III. The holiness of God is an essential attribute ; by which 
I mean that he cannot but be holy. I have formerly ob- 
served that we must be cautious how we apply the term 
cannot to the Divine Being ; for the truth is, it is often ap- 



130 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

plied to him in a way that is absolutely degrading. But 
here this caution does not apply. Here the cannot is a glo- 
rious one. The impossibility which we ascribe to him is 
itself a perfection. Just as it is a perfection of light that it 
cannot produce darkness, just as it is a perfection of gold 
that it cannot rust, and of the diamond that it cannot be 
consumed, just as it is a perfection of pure water that it can- 
not pollute, and of pure air that it cannot but be healthy, — 
even so it is a perfection in God that he cannot look on sin, 
that he cannot but be holy. The virtue of all other beings 
is derived from him, dependent on him for its first existence 
and its continued maintenance. Just as our pardon is the 
fruit of his mercy, our knowledge a stream from his wisdom, 
our strength a derivation from his power, even so our virtue 
is but a beam from his holiness. Moral excellence in men 
and angels is the gift of God, just as the planets shine by 
the light of the sun ; but as that luminary shines by his own 
light, even so the infinite moral excellence of God is an unde- 
rived, essential part of his being. We say not, indeed, that 
his holiness is a necessary property of the Divine Being in 
the same manner in which hardness is a necessary property 
of the diamond, and brightness a necessary property of light. 
The diamond cannot but be hard, because God made it so. 
The light cannot but shine, for so God ordained it ; but God 
cannot but be holy because his own free-will, acting on his 
perfect knowledge of the excellence of moral goodness and 
the loathsomeness of moral evil, constrains him to be so. So 
that the necessity by which he is holy is a free necessity. 
Not like brute animals that shrink instinctively, without 
knowing why, from what may do them harm, the Almighty 
shrinks from sin and hates it, with the concentrated detesta- 
tion of a God, in every shape, in every creature, because he 
perfectly knows and perfectly loathes it as the essential ene- 
my of his rights and majesty and glory, and the grand foe 
of the moral universe that he rules and governs. 

IV. Holiness is the crowning glory of God ; essential to 
his very being as such. When the apostle says of the Gen- 
tiles, that they were " alienated from the life of God," and 
goes on to explain that they were " given over to lascivious- 
ness to work all uncleanness with greediness," he evidently 
means that they were alienated, estranged from all moral 
goodness or holiness. Thus by the life of God he means 
holiness. Holiness is the life of God ; without it he would 



EEV. WM. B. WEED. 131 

cease to be God, as the sun, shorn of his beams of light, 
would be a sun no longer. Take all the attributes which 
natural or revealed religion ascribe to the Divine Being, 
with the exception of holiness, and we boldly say that not 
one, or all of them together, can make a God, a glorious 
God, worthy of hearty esteem, of infinite honor. An om- 
nipotent being may be nothing but an almighty monster. 
An all-wise, all-knowing being may be nothing but an infin- 
ite Satan, just possessing the craft and the subtlety of the 
father of lies, only in an infinite degree. In fact, if the 
attributes of God were conceived of as so many distinct 
bodies, every one of them would be a corpse without holi- 
ness. Without it his long-suffering would be only an unwor- 
thy indulgence of sin ; his mercy a capricious and unworthy 
fondness ; his power an infinite tyranny ; his wisdom an in- 
finite subtlety ; his wrath an infinite madness ; and goodness 
and justice he would not possess at all. His other attributes 
are like the separate stones of an arch, vast and magnificent 
from their infinity ; but holiness is the keystone which gives 
strength and consistency and glory to the whole — like the 
rainbow that is round about his throne, beautiful and lovely 
from its harmonious symmetry. Almighty power, that never 
acts without a holy motive ; infinite wisdom, that never plans 
but by the rule of holiness ; eternal mercy, that never par- 
dons except on grounds which infinite righteousness ap- 
proves, is glorious ; a God who does all things well, because 
he does all things right, who lays the plummet and the 
square of perfect moral purity to all his actions, and circum- 
scribes all the manifestations of his Godhead within the 
sphere of infinite holiness, this it is to be the Father all- 
glorious. Even his v/rath becomes shorn of every unworthy 
association, when we consider that it is the wrath of a holy 
God. When he revealed himself to Ezekiel in a form ex- 
pressive of his anger at the house of Judah for their idolatry, 
from his loins downward there was the appearance of fire, 
the emblem of wrath; but from the loins upward there was 
the appearance of brightness, as the color of amber, to indi- 
cate that — not like the acts of man's vindictive justice, in 
which there is always something of passion and cruelty — the 
heart of Jehovah is clear in his most terrible acts of ven- 
geance ; it is a pure and holy flame with which he scorches 
and burns up his enemies. He is holy even in the most fiery 
appearance. A consuming fire, he burns against his enemies, 



132 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

not with the rage of ungovernable passion, but with the holy 
displeasure of an insulted God. 

V. It is the hohness of God which constitutes his loveli- 
ness. In the imagery of Scripture the power of God is his 
hand or arm, his wisdom is his eye, his mercy is his bowels, 
his love is his heart, but his holiness is his beauty. The 
singers were directed by David to go before the army and 
praise the beauty of holiness, that is, as it is explained in the 
same verse, should praise the Lord ; just as the temple is 
often called " the beauty" because it was holy, sanctified to 
God, even so God himself is called pre-eminently "the 
beauty of holiness," — that is, the essentially beautiful in holi- 
ness. Introduce me into the awful sanctuary of the divine 
attributes, and I see much to excite my awe, my wonder, my 
fears, but nothing to move my love, until the face of his holi- 
ness appears shedding a transcendent beauty over all. Thei-e 
is wondrous power there, but how can I love it if I know not 
but the next moment it may capriciously crush me to atoms. 
There are infinite treasures of knowledge there, but how 
can I love it if I know not but, like superior intelligence in 
many cases among men, it may be employed to curse the 
universe ? There are oceans of mercy there, but how can I 
love it if I know not but it may bear the unrepenting sinner 
to heaven, and thus make heaven a hell. And listen. The 
choir of heaven are tuning their harps. I hear the strain. 
" Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty !" At once 
the whole aspect of Deity is changed, and as his heavenly 
train dwell upon that attribute with a fervency of repetition, 
which shows how deeply it affects their hearts. Holy, Holy, 
Holy, — just as the dying saint in the intensity of his love 
exclaimed, " Blessed, blessed, blessed Jesus !" even so do I feel 
constrained to yield my heart's full affections to such a being, 
or admit that it has nothing that deserves the name of love 
to yield to any thing. For the heart is a harp of a thousand 
strings, some one of which thrills to the touch of beauty in 
whatsoever, even the lowest form. We say this, at the same 
time protesting our utter contempt for that infatuation which 
leads many to lavish their affections on an unworthy object 
just because it has a fair outside. The beauty which varie- 
gated colors give to the flower, the beauty which color and 
symmetrical proportion combined give to the picture, or the 
statue, in a greater or less degree not only move our admi- 
ration but awaken our affections 5 and though it is the Ian 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 133 

guage of poetry, it is scarcely more than the language of 
truth to call a iaultless likeness of the human form, though 
it were nothing after all but cold inanimate stone, a beloved 
marble. But as the highest, most commanding, most glori- 
ous form of beauty is that arising from the perfect symmetry 
of moral character in an intelligent being, produced by the 
harmonizing influence of moral excellence, running through 
and controlling all — therefore should it draw out and com- 
mand our highest affections ; and therefore when I behold 
that beauty, in the highest possible degree, beaming from 
the face of God — when I behold a moral excellence, a virtue, 
a holiness, immaculate, underived, essential, perfect, seated 
on the throne and reigning in the heart, directing the power 
and controlling the wisdom, dictating the justice and regu- 
lating the mercy, bounding the patience and tempering the 
wrath of God — why then, before the transcendent blaze of 
that all-godlike, all-perfect, all-harmonious beauty, would I 
put my shoes from off my feet, and bow in the adoring wor- 
ship of love befoi-e his face, and call aloud to all the saints 
of his to '' Bless the Lord, and give thanks at the remem- 
brance of his holiness." 

1. True love to God has necessarily a primary reference to 
his holiness. In other words, he who does not love God 
essentially because he is holy, is incapable of loving him at 
all. A special separating-line which divides the sinner from 
the saint is this, that though the former often fancies that he 
loves God, and is never willing to own that he hates him ; 
though he may be, in a measure, sensible of the divine bounty 
w^hich he lives upon, and imagine that he loves him for that ; 
though he may expect to be saved by his mercy, and imagine 
that he loves him for that ; yet he never thinks of him as a 
holy being : and if he did, if God, not merely as the provi- 
dentially good, not merely as the merciful but as the holy 
One, were once fully revealed to his mind, he would see in a 
moment that he is just the most hateful object that exists. 
But the saint, whose soul is alive to the sense of moral ex- 
cellence, is fully alive to the love of God, just because he is 
the highest specimen of moral excellence. Even a finite 
mind (who cannot witness?) whose moral nature is all at- 
tuned and harmonized by reigning virtue, is like a well- 
tuned harp ; its exercises like so many harmonious notes of 
music in the delightful impression on those who are capable 
of feeling them. But God, that infinite moral nature, eon- 

12 



134 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

trolled and guided by infinite holiness, is the grand and 
matchless organ whose music resounds through and charms 
the universe. All the displays which he makes of himself, 
all the manifestations of his various attributes, because the 
grand mainspring and regulator of all is holiness, make one 
perpetual strain of moral harmony that spell-binds and delights 
all his holy creation, and his saints among the rest. Are 
these things new to you, dear brethren ? Do you love God, 
mainly and essentially because he is holy ? For, take notice, 
a mere regard for God as our benefactor, may be purely 
selfish. A mere regard for God as our Saviour, may be 
purely selfish ; and it certainly is so unless, over and above 
all this, we love him not merely for his benefactions, not 
merely for his mercy, but love himself for himself, and be- 
cause he is holv. Without this there can be no relio^ion. 
For conceive a certain person professes an appetite for a 
certain fruit, and you offer him a specimen of it in its highest 
perfection of luscious ripeness, and he evidently cares nothing 
about it, what is the inference ? Now what is religion but a 
rational, hearty love of all that is morally excellent and holy ? 
But God is the infinite, glorious embodiment of perfect 
moral excellence and holiness. Does not he deceive himself 
then, who imagines that he has any thing that deserves the 
name of religion, whose heart does not yield its full incense 
of adoring love to God as, and mainly and essentially, as the 
perfection of holiness ? Leave all the good he has ever done 
me out of the account, and I should still love him as the 
holy, and therefore lovely and blessed One. But let all the 
benefits which he has ever conferred on my body or my 
soul remain, yet let him cease to be holy, and I could love 
him no more. Such is the language of every saint that 
deserves the name. 

2. But, Christian friends, ye should love not only, ye 
should emulate this glorious attribute of God. Satan at- 
tempted to emulate the power of God, and fell into hell 
thereby. Adam undertook to emulate the wisdom of God, 
and lost his paradise thereby. But Paul, but David, made 
it their holy ambition to emulate the holiness of God, and 
gained the paradise above thereby. The mount of his holi- 
ness is sublime and awful indeed, but not like Sinai, which 
no footstep was permitted to approach ; no, but from its 
summit, you hear a voice which saith, " Come up hither." 
"The righteous Lord loveth righteousness." As his chief 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 135 

object of complacence is himself, so he loves to see his crea- 
tures like him. He loves to see his whole creation beautify- 
ing in his sight in those hues of holiness that emulate his 
own. Ask ye the proof? Why died your Saviour? To 
make you Hke God. Why breathed his Spirit on your 
heart ? To make you like God. Why does the one inter- 
cede for, and the other dwell m your heart, at present ? To 
make you like God. In your carnal days ye sinned in spite 
of him ; but now if ye grow not in grace, in virtue, in holi- 
ness, it must be in spite of him ; for his own nature which is 
holy, and therefore delights in holiness, his own word, which 
assures you that his will is your sanctification, the offering 
of his Son that he might purify you to himself, and the gift 
of his Spirit that he might sanctify you to God, assure you 
that nothing on his part can or will be wanting to make you 
holy as himself is holy. 

3. Fellow-sinner, there are many things, many objects, 
many persons, perhaps, that you dislike. But now conceive 
that all the enmity which your heart is capable of exercising 
Avere just concentrated upon one object, or one person, and 
that you hated that w^ith the full intensity of your nature. 
Just tliink how deadly that enmity would be. N^ow there 
is but one thing in all the universe which Jehovah hates. It 
is sin. He hates it with the full intensity of his infinite na- 
ture. He hates it with the utmost, and with all the hatred 
which a God can feel. Just as if the great Ocean were con- 
fined within the limits of a narrow river, it would have a 
measureless depth, and a rushing force, which nothing could 
stem and nothing withstand, — even so the infinite wa-ath of 
God confined within one channel, concentrated upon one 
object — what can w^ithstand it? Who can stand before it? 
Sinner, can you ? This question must be answered. Mercy 
is now holding you above it ; but there it is, flashing by you 
in the rushing current of its fury. Do you doubt it? Then 
you doubt there is a God. You have seen that hatred of sin 
is an essential attribute of God. Take that away and he is 
God no longer. Blot hell from the universe and you blot 
God from heaven. For that dread abode is the prison of 
sin. Its torments are the manifestations of his holy anger 
a2:ainst it. Are there no such torments ? then God has no 
displeasure at sin. Has he no displeasure at sin ? Then he 
has no holiness. Has he no holiness? Then he is no God. 
His glory, and his beauty, and his excellence as the Lord of 



136 SERMONS BY TOE LATE 

all, is gone. But do you believe that the holy wrath of the 
Lord Almighty is revealed and levelled against your sins by 
the necessity of his nature, and with the full intensity of his 
nature ? Then where is thy strength, thy power, thy om- 
nipotence, to withstand it ? Alas ! lost mortal, the hour is 
at hand. Thou must go and encounter the terrors of thy 
Maker's holiness ; and if falling rocks and mountains cannot 
then hide thee from the angry eye of a holy God, the shadow 
of the great rock, Christ Jesus, alone can do it now. 



"i^or Ood so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son,^^ 

dtc, — John iii. 16. 

I HAVE chosen a subject this morning, to which, if I were 
so presumptuous as to suppose myself capable of doing jus- 
tice, I should expect to do what men who spake as they 
were moved by the Holy Ghost could not. It is plainly a 
subject which employed and filled their laboring minds, a 
subject with which their souls were glowing, for you see it, 
ever and anon, breaking out in their writings in exclama- 
tions of astonished, and grateful, and adoring wonder ; but 
that was the only way they had to express it. They never 
endeavor to go into a sober description of it, doubtless be- 
cause they felt it was beyond their power. " Behold," says 
one of them, " what manner of love the Father hath be- 
stowed upon us that we should be called the children of 
God." And there he stops. He attempts not to explain it 
further. Behold what manner of love! That simple ex- 
clamation was all the means he had of developing the over- 
whelming thought. " God," says another, " even when we 
were dead in sins hath quickened us together with Christ — 
and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus." 
Do you ask why he hath done this? He answers, "for his 
great love wherewith he loved us." Do you ask how great ? 
He answers in another place where, discoursing on the same 
subject till it had overpowered him, he breaks out with — 
''How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways" (his 
ways of mercy and love) " past finding out." So in the text, 
"God so loved the world." He does not say why, for he 
knew not. He does not say how much, for he could not. 



EEY. WM. B. WEED. 137 

A distinguished author giving an account of his visit to one 
of the vast works of nature in our country, when he has 
reached a point where the whole of the stupendous scene 
broke on his sight, instead of going into a labored descrip- 
tion, simply exclaims : " Who can describe that sight !" and 
adds not another word : nor need he ; for if he had written 
page upon page, he could not have given us a livelier idea 
of the stupendous grandeur of the scene than those few 
words convey. And so the apostles, when from their lofty 
elevation on the mount of inspiration they looked down on 
that wondrous sight, the love of God, — when the teachings 
of their own experience combined with the teachings of the 
Holy Ghost to bring up that iove before their minds in all 
its plenitude, and richness, and vastness, — when, instead of 
proceeding to give a long lecture upon it, they merely make 
use of words enough to show how bewildered and overpow- 
ered they are, — methinks we want no other means of judg- 
ing how^ inconceivably vast the love of the great Creator to 
his sinful creatures must be, which men who had the Spirit 
of God to teach them, and the most experienced language 
in the world to write in, found it impossible to compass in 
words. Why then should w^e undertake it? Those who 
have felt that love ought to know it by experience, a thou- 
sand times better than we can describe it ; and to those who 
have felt it not, all that we can say in explanation of it may 
seem, like every thing connected with the preaching of the 
cross, foolishness. But every thing connected with the 
preaching of the cross is the powder of God unto salvation, if 
he choose to make it so. I shall, therefore, venture a few 
thoughts on the mighty topic of his saving love. Perhaps 
his grace may make them the means of kindling anew the 
love of those who have hitherto been his friends ; perhaps 
his Spirit may use them as the means of disarming the oppo- 
sition of those who have hitherto been his enemies. 

I. Whatever was the motive that inspired the Divine Be- 
ing with this love for a sinful world, it was begun and ended 
with himself. It was perfectly self-moved. It was perfectly 
unsolicited. And the reason is, that when, speaking after the 
manner of men, it was first conceived, there was no being in 
the universe, out of God himself, to solicit it. " Blessed," 
says Paul to the Ephesians, "be the God and Father of our 
Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual 
blessings in heavenly places in Christ, according as he hath 

12* 



138 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

chosen us in him before the foundation of the world." The 
saving love which led to that choice then, must have existed 
before the Avorld began. And so says Peter : " Ye were re- 
deemed with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb with- 
out blemish and without spot ; who verily was foreordained" 
(that is, preordained to be the sin-atoning Lamb) "before 
the foundation of the world." But if the Lamb was ordained 
to die before the date of the creation, the sovereign love 
which decreed his death must have had an equally early 
date. The truth is, the ways of God are everlasting. Every 
thing about him is eternal. His plans, his purposes, as well 
as his attributes, as well as his existence, are all eternal. 
Not like short-sighted men, who form plans of action when 
occasions occur to require them, he saw from all eternity all 
the occasions, all the exigences which would require him to 
act at all; and, therefore, he determined from all eternity 
how he would act in relation to them. We conclude, then, 
that his purpose of saving love towards this sinful world is 
as old as eternity. Now we have some striking displays of 
the mercy of God in the history of the Jews. On one occa- 
sion, when Korah and his company of blasphemers had been 
swallowed up by the opening earth, and when, on the mor- 
row, the people murmured against Moses and Aaron, saying, 
" Ye have killed the people of the Lord ;" when, in conse- 
quence, the wrath of God awoke, and the plague had begun, 
all in a moment we see the wrath subside, we see mercy 
triumph, and the plague stayed. But here there is an ap- 
parent external inducement. There is an intercessor here. 
There is Aaron, with his smoking censer, standing between 
the living and the dead, and interceding that the kindled 
wrath might cease. And so in repeated instances where 
the intercession of Moses apparently moved the offended 
Jehovah to pardon his offending people. Now, though we 
have no right to doubt that the Divine Being, in all those 
cases as in every other, acted in fact independently, yet still, 
according to our mode of thinking, we do not see this so 
clearly; we do not appreciate so fully the bowels of his 
compassion, as if no such external inducement had existed. 
Well, in the present case there was none ; there could be 
none. You are to go back, ages upon ages, into the past eter- 
nity, before the first sun enlightened the skies, before the 
first star twinkled, before the first planet moved, before the 
first intelligent creature lived ; — when there was no creation, 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 139 

when there Avas nothing in the universe but God, self-existing 
in solitary greatness and independent glory. And now, as 
he casts his eye down the long track of the eternity to come, 
a world comes up before his sight, groaning beneath the 
chains, red with the guilt, and black with the curse of sin, 
and doomed to wrath eternal forevermore, unless his mercy 
interposes. And what shall move him to interpose that 
mercy ? No daysman is there, no mediator to propose and 
advocate terms of peace between God and man. God only 
must propose the terms of peace, for there is nothing there 
but God. No pitying angel is there to fall before his throne, 
and move the heart of the Eternal One to compassion with 
his interceding tears ; for the first angel is not created yet. 
And, blessed news to an else ruined world ! the heart of the 
Eternal One contained a motive to compassion of its own, — 
even love unfathomable, unaccountable, infinite; and from 
the impulse, the pure, naked impulse of that love unasked, 
uninfluenced, unsolicited, he formed the eternal purpose to 
save that world from hell at the sacrifice of his Son. Judge 
ye what manner of love is this. 

II. The saving love of God was perfectly disinterested. 
He had nothing to gain by the exercise of it, and nothing to 
lose by withholding it. Unlike the imperfect creatures of our 
race, whose happiness depends upon a thousand external 
sources, whose cup of enjoyment is supplied from a thousand 
external rills, and liable to be embittered if even one of them 
be dried up, the Divine Being has a world, has a universe, 
has an eternity of happiness within himself. The Ocean of 
infinite blessedness which pervades his spirit has all its 
springs in his spirit also. It receives supplies from nothing 
external, and nothing external can diminish it a drop. No 
event that can take place in the universe can make him essen- 
tially more happy, and no event that can take place in the 
universe can make him essentially less so. Let this world be 
hopelessly crushed to hell, and he would still be the infinitely 
blessed God. Let it be filled wdth the peace, and the joy, 
and the glory of heaven, and he would still be nothing more 
than the infinitely blessed God. His motive for saving it, 
then, could, from the nature of the case, have had nothing 
personal, nothing selfish, nothing interested about it, seeing 
that, as far as he was personally concerned, it was just the 
same whether it was saved or damned. His motive for saving 
it could have been nothing else than pure, transparent, disin- 



140 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

terested love; self-acting, self-influenced love. And you who 
have all your lives been trying to find a specimen of disinter- 
ested benevolence, and have tried in vain — who have found 
so much of the loathsome leaven of selfishness at the bottom 
of the best deeds of the best men, that you have come to the 
conclusion that the word " disinterested" ought to be ex- 
punged from the human vocabulary, as a word without 
meaning, as far as human nature is concerned — come, see it 
gloriously exemplified in the divine nature. Come and re- 
fresh your heart with the sight of the clear, broad, deep 
stream of love, unmingled with a taint of selfishness, flowing 
from the bosom of the Eternal One, and bearing life, and 
pardon, and salvatiou, to a ruined world. Is it not some- 
thing worth seeing ? Is it not something worth feeling ? Oh, 
look not at it, fellow-sinner, with indiflerence, for you your- 
self are one of the objects of this love, if you loill be. 

III. This love will appear in a still stronger light, if we 
consider it as exercised towards infei-iors. The man of 
wealth, who makes it his business to seek out and relieve the 
necessities of the poor — the military leader who overlooks 
not his meanest soldier, but visits and cares for him when 
sick or Avounded — the monarch who protects the rights, and 
redresses the wrongs, and consults the happiness of the 
humblest class of his subjects, are admired, and extolled, 
and praised for their condescending goodness. According 
to the estimation of men, love — entire benevolence — is, in 
one respect, like a falling body — it falls upon the heart with 
a greater force, in proportion to the height from which it 
comes. It is deemed more striking, more lovely in propor- 
tion to the distance between him from whom and him to 
whom it comes. Oh, with what a force, then, should the 
saving love of God fall upon our hearts ! It falls from the 
everlasting hills down, down to this poor earthly clod. It 
falls from the infinite height of Godhead down to the infinite 
depth of poor, degraded human nature ; and it raises poor, 
degraded human nature up, and places it in the same throne 
with the Godhead, and enfolds it in his bosom. Why, take 
the greatest, the most exalted man that ever lived — nay, take 
the mightiest archangel that inhabits the paradise of God, 
and take the very meanest of your own race, and place them 
side by side, and when you have sufficiently contemplated 
the contrast between them, then imagine the former to re- 
ceive the latter to his bosom and embrace him as a friend, a 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 141 

brother. Now widen this contrast to the utmost stretch of 
thought or fancy — imagine a distance in the scale of being 
ten thousand times ten thousand times further than between 
Gabriel and the most w^retched inhabitant of the alms- 
house — place at the one extremity a glorious and exalted 
God, and at the other the worms of the dust that crawl 
upon his footstool, and then think what manner of love it 
must have been which made that glorious God stoop through 
all that infinite distance, open his bosom, and open a way 
for these worms to come to its embraces through the bleed- 
ing heart of his Son ! See you that we have got beyond 
our depth ? If we would describe such love as this, we 
must invent a language which can describe the infinite. If 
we would measure it, we must invent a rule which can 
measure boundlessness. But we can feel it — and is there 
one that hears me who wdll refuse to do so ? Is there one 
who is determined to steel his heart against the matchless 
and unheard-of benevolence of a stooping, condescending 
God ? But I remark — 

IV. New wonders circle around the saving love of God, if 
we consider it as exercised towards sinners, whom the ruling 
principle of his own moral character impelled him to abhor 
and hate as such. I have before remarked that there was 
no external motive — no motive out of himself, which could 
have, in any degree, influenced him to form his purpose of 
salvation. I now have to add that there was a strong inter- 
nal motive in his own bosom directly against the adoption of 
such a purpose. For when the question was agitated in the 
eternal mind, '' Shall the race of Adam be saved or lost ?" 
the lirst inquiry that would naturally arise would be this, 
"Who are this race, and what are their claims upon my 
mercy ?" And what was the answer which his omniscience 
gave, as it searched through all that race, and scrutinized 
the individuals who composed it, one and all ? " They are 
all sinners — every man and woman of them. They all do the 
abominable thing which I hate. The moral character of 
every one of them is a living corruption — a loathsome pollu- 
tion, from w^iich the infinite holiness of mine recoils with an 
infinite disgust." Must it not have been so ? Is it not in the 
nature of things that holiness should hate sin ? Is it not in the 
nature of things that a Being, whose character is but another 
name for holiness, should revolt with abhorrence from beings 
whose character is but another name for sin — sin personified 



142 SEKMONS BY THE LATE 

— sin incarnate ? And yet he loved them in spite of that, 
and judge ye, then, how strong, how mighty the love must 
be which could triumph over that disgust, which could climb 
up over that mountain of abhorrence, and hang out from 
above it the flag of mercy to beings such as these. Closely 
connected with this I remark — 

V. This love appears still more illustrious if we consider 
it as exercised towards enemies, whom the strictest principles 
of justice required him to punish. In this point of view, let 
me try to give you a faint idea of the awful scene when the 
destiny of this world was hanging on the decision of the 
Almighty. There he sits upon his sovereign throne, the In- 
dependent Sovereign, the Absolute Judge, from whose tri- 
bunal there is no appeal, and the question is. Shall the race 
of Adam be raised up within reach of heaven, or shall they 
be thrust down to hell ? But one witness appears, and that 
is against them. But one counsel appears, and that is against 
them too. That witness is Omniscience, and testifies in the 
language of infallible truth to this effect : " That race shall, 
every one of them, transgress and laugh to scorn the law on 
which thy throne is built, and shall do their utmost to anni- 
hilate and crush thy sovereign power." And now Justice, the 
only counsel present, arises, with eyes flashing indignation 
and wrath, and exclaims, "Let them be crushed !" He opens 
the statute-book of heaven, where it is set down in letters 
and lines of light, that the penalty of transgression is death ; 
that he who sets at naught the sceptre of Jehovah must feel 
his rod. And who shall rise up to testify in favor of a guilty 
world ? There is none. Who shall rise up to advocate their 
claims? There is none to speak a word in their favor; for 
the pleading mediator is not appointed yet. Well then, there 
is no hope for them, and hell is yawning to receive them. 
No ! no ! there is hope ! for lo ! an advocate starts up in the 
bosom of the Almighty Judge himself, and rolls back with 
an omnipotent force the tide of impending wrath. Almighty 
love f )r the miserable culprits interposes and pleads for them 
with an eloquence irresistible. They are sinners. " But I love 
them." They are enemies. " But I love them." They are self- 
constituted outlaws. " But I love them, and therefore I will 
save them at whatever cost." Yet the organic law of your 
empire requires you to punish them. " But I love them ; 
and therefore, rather than they should be lost, I will draw 
upon the stores of wisdom and knowledge, which are laid 



KEV. WM. B. wp:ed. 14 



Q 



up in rae, to the very utmost, to construct a scheme whereby 
the law may be saved whole, and yet they be saved too." 
Was ever love like this ? Is it not God-like ? But now, to 
lay the top-stone on this pyramid of w^onders, I remark — 

VI. What enhances this saving love beyond all height, 
and breadth, and depth, and length, is the sacrifice to which 
Jehovah submitted in order to indulge it. " God so loved 
the Avorld that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoso- 
ever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal 
life." Eternal ages will not be long enough for you to arrive 
at the full, the inexpressibly affecting meaning of this lan- 
guage ; but in order to unfold it, in some degree, let me re- 
mark, that the object most near and dear to the heart of 
Jehovah, in the w^hole universe, is his only-begotten Son. 
He hath ever loved him with an affection whose date is eter- 
nal, and whose degree is infinite. Before the mountains 
were settled, when he prepared the heavens, when he set a 
compass on the face of the depth, when he established the 
clouds above, w^hen he appointed the foundations of the 
earth, then that Eternal Son was by him as one brought up 
wdth him, and w^s daily his delight, rejoicing always before 
him. In him he beheld the brightness of his glory and the 
express image of his person. In him he beheld his own un- 
clouded Deity shining full-orbed, beaming ray for ray, and 
glory for glory. In him he beheld his own eternal attributes, 
and all the lovely features of his own character — one and all ; 
and all the complacence, all the love which a perfect sympathy, 
a perfect likeness, a perfect oneness could inspire, did he cherish 
towards the Son, w^hose every feeling, and thought, and action 
w^as in unison with his — who was perfectly like him in every 
respect — who w^as perfectly one with him. Now in order to 
accomphsh his purpose of saving love towards such creatures 
as you and I, he Avas obliged to resolve to give up that Son 
to suffer all the indignities which the w^ickedness of men and 
the malice of devils could inflict — ^to give him up to live the 
life of a pauper, and to die the death of a criminal — to be 
mocked, and spit upon, and scourged, and murdered — nay, he 
Avas obliged to resolve to pour out, himself, upon that dear 
Son, who had dwelt in his bosom from all eternity, the vials 
of his own Almighty wrath, wdthout mixture. Thus only 
could a righteous law be satisfied — ^thus only could an un- 
righteous sinner be justified. And now I proceed to try to 
bring this matter home to you, and lead you to feel, in some 



144 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

faint degree, Avhat a love is here. And let me suppose that 
there is a certain individual so much beneath you in the scale 
of society, and in every possible respect, that men would 
wonder if they should see you even speak to him. In par- 
ticular, his character is marked with every vice that disgraces 
humanity — with every sin that makes virtue blush. More- 
over, he has been for years doing every thing in his power to 
injure your character and destroy your reputation. But at 
leno'th he commits some crime for which he is condemned to 
death. And suppose you know it is in your power to save 
him. But how ? You must take the object most dear to 
you on eai'th — you must take the wife of your bosom — the 
child of your love — you must take that father or that brother 
— you must give him up to be mocked, and insulted, and put to 
death — and, lest the executioner should not be sure enough, 
you yourself must lend a hand, and exert your whole power 
to aggravate the sufferings of that beloved one. And this, 
too, of 3^our own accord. ISTo one solicits it, and you are to 
gain nothing by it. The man will be saved, and that is all. 
Could you do it ? I need not ask. Human nature pronounces it 
to be impossible. But may not this help you to form some idea 
of the saving love of him with whom all things are possible. 
There are beings who are nothing but moths compared with 
him, with a character infinitely disgusting to him, with 
hearts implacably hostile to him — and yet to save such be- 
ings from wrath eternal he sends his Son to be scourged, and 
crucified — nay, scourges that beloved Son, himself, till he 
makes him cry out in anguish of spirit, " My God ! w^hy hast 
thou forsaken me !" And all this from no solicitation — from 
no expectation of gaining any thing by it personally — from 
no other motive than disinterested, self-moving, boundless 
love. And is it not boundless ? Why, if you consider only 
the infinite inferiority of man to God in the scale of being, 
the love which moved him to save them is a wonder. If 
you consider their moral loathsomeness in his sight, it is still 
more a wonder. If you consider them as rebellious enemies, 
it is more wonderful still ; but when you consider the dread- 
ful price he paid for their salvation, the love which prompted 
him to save them becomes a wonder in omnipotence itself 
You may gaze on it, admire, adore, and wonder at it — but 
you can no more describe it, and you can no more form an 
adequate conception of it than — than Gabriel can. 

1. And now permit me to say, fellow-sinner, that if the 



EEV. WM. B. WEED. 145 

truth which has been set forth on this occasion hath no 
power to atlect you, humanly speaking, I kno^v not what 
can. If the sight of divine compassion, if the sight of a con- 
descending, stooping, loving God cannot move your heart, 
what, oh ! what is there that will do it ? Your sins have 
placed you in the dreadful attitude of hostility to the Lord 
Almighty ; and yet, instead of arming his hands with exter- 
minating thunders to crush you, as all heaven expected him 
to do, and as he did when a part of the inhabitants of heaven 
revolted from their obedience as you have done, behold he 
himself hangs forth the flag of truce, and on it in characters 
of light and hope is written, Loye. He tells you that he so 
loves that precious soul of yours, that rather than it should 
perish, rather than it should be consigned to a chain and a 
prison of immortal woe, he hath wrought out a scheme of 
salvation, though it cost him the blood of his Son to do so ; 
and now, if you but forsake your sins, and believe, and cast 
your soul upon the merits of that offered Son, eternal peace 
shall be between you and him; you shall be no more an 
enemy, but a friend ; no more an alien, but a citizen of the 
household of faith ; no more a rebel, but a child of God. 
And life eternal and all that word includes — to inhabit the 
paradise of God, to drink of the river of life which proceedeth 
from his throne, and to eat of the tree of life that grows 
upon its banks, to sit upon the same throne with the great 
Redeemer, w^hile through eternity the Father, Son, and Holy 
Ghost shall be employed in filling you heart and soul with as 
much bliss as it is capable of holding, shall be yours. Can 
you be indifferent to this language of the God of grace? 
You may steel your heart against his threatenings ; but can 
you resist his tenderness ? you may close your ears against 
the thunders of his law" ; but can you refuse to listen when 
it is the sweet, persuasive voice of love that speaks ? Lo ! 
God, your sovereign Lord, stoops down even unto you, wdth 
his arms of love wide apen to receive you. Can you spurn 
him from you ? Behold he lifts up his bleeding Son before 
your sight, and tells you that life and eternal redemption can 
be secured to vou throug^h faith in him. Have you the heart 
to turn your back upon him ? Now may God forbid, that 
after he hath made such a rich provision for your salvation, 
and at such a costly sacrifice, you should disregard his love, 
condemn his mercy, reject his Son, and make his expiring 
sufferings, as far as you are concerned, of none effect. 

13 



146 SKRMONS BY THE LATE 

2. Are there not some here Avho are trying to counteract 
the force of this exhortation, by the reflection that a God of 
such matchless love will not let you be lost at all events ? 
Dear friend, how do you know that he is a God of such 
matchless love ? you say, " from the text ;" and does not the 
same text say, " whosoever believeth ?" Will you credit the 
word of truth in the one case, and disbelieve it in another ? 
For, as plainly as it says — " God so loved the world that he 
gave his only-begotten Son," so plainly does it say, "that 
whosoever believeth on him shall not perish." Is not the 
clear inference, that no one else shall? you know very well 
what it elsewhere says shall be done with him that believeth 
not. See you not how unreasonable it is to expect that God 
will stretch his love beyond the point where he has told you 
it must stop ? Look at that man in that dungeon. He is 
condemned to death, and in a few days he must stand upon 
the scaffold. And now he in whom the pardoning power 
resides, out of mere mercy, offers him a pardon on one con- 
dition. How unreasonable, what an insult to that mercy it 
would be for that criminal to say, " If he can forgive me on 
this condition he can forgive me without it ; and therefore I 
will not perform it." And God, out of his amazing and 
astonishing mercy, hath provided and presented to you the 
means of salvation, on the single condition that you repent 
and believe. Now can you say — " I require him to do more 
than that. I require him to save me without any condition. 
I require him to save me though I continue to insult his love 
by sinning even to my latest breath." Depend upon it God 
will do no more than he says he will. Vast is the love which 
spread the feast of salvation ; but your soul must starve be- 
fore you touch it unless you repent and beheve. You must 
do that, or this feast hath been set, God hath loved, and 
Christ hath died in vain for you. 

3. It is related of that man of God, the Kev. Gilbert Ten- 
nent, whose praise and the savor of whose name is in all the 
churches, that having preached at a certain place on the 
morning of the Lord's Day, when the hour came for the 
afternoon service he was found to be missing. As he did 
not make his appearance for some time, some individuals 
went in search of him. They found him in a piece of woods 
adjoining the church, stretched upon the ground, and weep- 
ing like a child. They inquired the cause of it ; but for a 
long time he could not speak. At length he told them, in a 



EEV. \V:>I. B. WEED. * 147 

voice choked with sobs, tliat having gone out to meditate at 
the close of the morning service, he had fallen to thinking on 
the very subject which has been discoursed u}3on to-day, and 
he had had such views of the matchless love of God in giv- 
ing his Son to die for sinful men, that they just completely 
overwhelmed him. They desired to know what were the 
peculiar views of the subject which had been presented to 
him ; but he could tell them nothing about it. They had 
overpowered his heart, but he could no more give them 
utterance in language than the apostle could utter the un- 
speakable words Avhich he heard in the third heaven. 

You see then how this subject may affect the heart of a 
child of God ; and where is the occasion when it ought to 
do so if this is not one ? For here you have before your 
eyes the most affecting illustration of the power of God's 
saving love. These elements are intended to fix your thought, 
to fix your faith on that bleeding Saviour, the only-begotten, 
the chief and best beloved of the Father, whom he gave up 
to the cross, and to death, out of a love he bore a sinful 
world and in order to save its sinful inhabitants from hell. 
Here then is the saving love, the tender mercies of our God, 
as it were revealed in its most soul-moving shape before 
your eyes. And noNv if you would feel it, let me pray you, 
each of you, to just shut the world, and shut the rest of the 
church entirely out of your thoughts, and regard that saving 
love as exercised towards you alone. Read the text in this 
way, " God so loved me that he gave his only-begotten Son 
that Z, believing on him, might not perish but have eternal 
life." There is a perfect propriety in your doing this, be- 
cause as vast a love, as great a sacrifice as was necessary to 
save a world of sinners, — so vast a love, so great a sacrifice 
Avas necessary to save a single sinner, and would have been 
necessary if there had been but one to be s^ved. Regard 
yourself as that one. Regard yourself as the insignificant 
worm, as the polluted sinner, as the rebel enemy, in whose 
behalf the unsolicited, disinterested love of the Eternal God 
was so much moved, that he tore his own dear Son from his 
heart, and hung him on the cross, in order to save you from 
hell; and here, in these emblems, is the living proof of it. 

Now if you see, if you feel this wondrous grace, then ask 
the question — "Have I loved my God in a degree corre- 
sponding to his love for me ? His love for me was infinite ; 
have I bestowed my heart supremely upon him ? Have I 



148 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

done all that my hand hath found to do, to show my sense 
of obligation to his abounding grace ? Have I served him 
as faithfully as he hath loved me ? If not, now is the time 
to repent ; for every expression of the goodness of God is 
calculated to lead to repentance, and here is the most illus- 
trious exhibition of his goodness that was ever made to the 
sons of men. Now is the time to weep over your coldness in 
the love and service of God. Now is the time to mourn our 
unfaithfulness, and neglect of duty, and hardness of heart, and 
stupidity of soul. And now is the time to kindle the flame of 
love anew. " We love him," says the apostle, " because he first 
loved us." Oh ! let the contemplation of that " love divine, all 
love excelling," which moved an Almighty Being to provide 
such a sacrifice for your sins as that which is presented to your 
eye of faith to-day, fire your heart with an answering love, with 
a corresponding devotion. God grant you grace so to im- 
prove the associations of this ordinance, this living memorial 
of his Son, that when hereafter you shall read Christ's ques- 
tion to his disciple — "Lovest thou me," you may be able to 
say, in the sincerity of your heart — '' Lord, thou knowest all 
things; thou knowest that I love tliee;" and that your lives 
and actions may be such that everybody shall know that 
you love him. 



I 



** Gold that perisheth:'—! Pet. i. 7. 

" There," exclaims an infidel — " there is at least one false- 
hood in the Bible. Gold does not perish. It is the most 
indestructible of all material substances. Bury it in the 
earth, and it will not rot. Throw it into the hottest fire, 
and it will not consume. Expose it to the air, and it will 
not rust. Certain fluids will, indeed, dissolve it into a liquid, 
but still its substance remains the same, and in the sense in 
M'hich all things else are perishable — liable to be decom- 
posed — to have their organic structure broken up and de- 
stroyed by the aggressive action of the various elements of 
matter — in that which is the only proper sense of the word, 
gold is notoriously not perishable, and Peter was mistaken 
in asserting that it is." 

" Not so," replies a zealous defender of inspiration. " It is 
you who are mistaken. For within these few years science 



REV. WIM. B. WEED. 149 

has devised a means — you may see its operation in any 
chemical laboratory — by which such a heat may be produced 
as will destroy the texture of gold as readily as it will that 
of wood — will not only melt it, but cause its substance to 
consume away and disappear, as easily as an ordinary fire 
will consume and destroy the most fragile specimens of ma- 
terial organization. Gold, therefore, is perishable ; and this 
language of the apostle, so far from proving that he was mis- 
taken, fallible, is an incontestible proof that he was inspired 
with a more than human sagacity w^hich could pursue, hun- 
dreds of years in advance, the results which the progress of 
science in this particular would accomplish." I have chosen 
this example in order to bring before your minds a question 
which, though at first sight it may seem a purely speculative 
one, yet cannot be deemed barren of interest when you con- 
sider that it involves the question of the inspiration of the 
Scripture. It is this: Whether the sacred winters were as 
enlightened in relation to matters of general science as they 
profess to be in relation to the science of religion ; or wheth- 
er, as regards these matters, they were as ignorant as their 
contemporaries. The unbeliever asserts the latter, and from 
this ignorance confidently denies their claim to inspiration ; 
for how, he demands, could men w^ho, you say, were inspired 
by the Spirit of all wisdom, be so utterly in the dark as they 
appear to be in relation to the most ordinary subjects of hu- 
man knowledge — far more so than the merest schoolboy in 
our day — as much so as the most illiterate of their own. On 
the other hand, the advocates of the inspiration of the Bible, 
one, for example, who has written a volume on the subject, 
which is likely to become a text-book in this country, admit- 
ting the force of this argument, and with a view to escape it, 
strenuously maintains that, in any branch of human science 
to which they incidentally refer, the sacred writers give evi- 
dence of being far in advance of the age in which they lived, 
aid no whit behind the light and the progress of ours. 

I. Now, plainly and honestly, w^e do not believe it. You 
may say it would be very desirable if w^e could. You may 
imagine that it w^ould be the most convincing argument in 
favor of the inspiration of the sacred penman, forever silen- 
cing the cavils of unbelief, if it could be shown that all that 
mass of scientific truth, which the rest of the world has 
learned only by the slow process of ages of investigation, 
lay naked and open before their eye. Where could they get 

13* 



150 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

it ? Infidelity would be obliged to answer, from God alone. 
But we must follow truth wherever it leads us, and truth 
compels us to admit that we find no evidence, no ipvoof that, 
on any subject except the science of divine truth, the sacred 
writers were not as ignorant as the average of their own 
countrymen in their own age. 

1. The passages of Scripture relied on to prove the con- 
trary — to prove the superior enlightenment of the writers of 
the Bible on other subjects of knowledge — are.insuflLicient. 

(1.) Take the example in the text. The apostle asserts 
that gold is perishable, and within these few years it has 
been proved to be destructible by certain means entirely un- 
known in his own day. But does tliat prove that he was 
acquainted with those means — that he foresaw that dis- 
covery ? The philosopher Plato, two thousand years before 
the discovery of this continent, asserted that there was a new 
continent beyond the Western sea. Did that prove that he 
was a prophet — that he foresaw that discovery ? No more 
does the fact that Peter speaks of gold as perishable prove 
that he foresaw the discovery of that agent by which it was 
to be consumed and destroyed. 

(2.) It is supposed that Isaiah was acquainted with the 
spherical figure of the globe — a fact which was certainly un- 
known to the world at large till long after his day. In the 
40th chap., verse 22, of his prophecy, speaking of God, " It 
is he," says he, " that sitteth upon (or above) the circle of 
the earth." But this passage, so far from proving that the 
prophet was aware of the fact that the earth was a globe, 
only proves that he knew — what any child might see — that 
to one raised upon an elevation above the earth's surface, 
the whole visible expanse would appear a circle whose cir- 
cumference is the horizon. 

(3.) The fact that the air has weight, which is a very 
modern discovery, is supposed to have been known to the 
patriarch Job. In chap. 28, verse 25, "He looketh to the 
ends of the earth and seeth under the whole heaven, to make 
the weight for the winds; and he weigheth the waters. by 
measure." But nothing is here said of the weight of the 
atmosphere. All that a sober interpretation can infer from 
this passage is, that Jehovah, whose power and wisdom the 
patriarch was describing, determines the force and direction 
of the winds in every instance, as strictly as if he had weighed 
them in a balance. 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 151 

(4.) Many learned geologists believe that the earth on 
which we dwell is nothing but a crust, and that its whole 
interior is a mass of fire. A writer on Inspiration strenuously 
asserts that this fact w^as known to the patriarch w^e have 
just quoted, and for this purpose refers to the 5th verse of his 
28th chap., "As for the earth, out of it cometh bread, and 
under it is turned up' as it w^ere fire." Never was a more 
egregious mistake. The patriarch is simply speaking of the 
productions of the earth. Its external soil yields us bread ; 
but w^hen we dig down under its surface we turn up, as it 
were, fire — that which looks like fire. And what is that ? 
He tells you in the next verse. " The stones of it are the 
place of sapphires, and it hath dust of gold," that sparkle 
and shine like fire. These are some of the principal instances 
adduced to prove the superior knowledge of the sacred wri- 
ters in matters of science. We trust you will agree with us 
that they prove no such thing. 

2. It is perfectly evident, from an inspection of their wri- 
tings, that those whom God employed as the penmen of his 
revelation were exceedingly illiterate men. You see no 
trace of the philosopher, the scientific man, about them. 
There are no learned disquisitions, no scientific investiga- 
tions, such as might be expected in men whose minds were 
a storehouse of every species of human learning. Their illus- 
trations are drawn, not from the difterent departments of 
science, but from the simplest scenes and phenomena of na- 
ture. They speak of things, not in their scientific relations, 
but according to their ordinary appearances. With them 
"the sun goes forth rejoicing like a strong man to run a 
race," making his circuit through the skies, just as he ap- 
pears to one who is ignorant of the facts of the solar system. 
In a word, a sober reader of the Bible will find abundant 
proofs that it was w^ritten by — w^iat a part of them are ex- 
pressly called — unlettered men ; but none, whatever, that it 
was written by men wdio were adepts in all the arts and 
sciences. If, then, inspiration cannot be made out without 
proving them to be such, we must give up their inspiration. 

3. Another consideration which strongly corroborates our 
proposition is, that not the most devoted reverencer of the 
Bible ever thinks of resorting to it for scientific facts. New- 
ton, the great creator of modern science, — though, unlike 
many in our day whom a vain philosophy hath spoiled, he 
was not ashamed to sit at the feet of Jesus, and bend his 



152 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

mighty mind in homage to the truth of God — yet in those 
investigations by which he laid the foundation of all those 
scientific discoveries and improvements which are the boast 
of modern days, you find him not interrogating the page of 
Revelation but the page of Nature. Was this from preju- 
dice agahist the former ? Ko, for he loved it above fine 
gold. It could only be from the conviction that the facts and 
principles of science were not there to be found. It is noto- 
rious that, abundant as is the light which the Scriptures have 
thrown on the duty, the character, and the destiny of man, 
it has lent him no immediate aid in those arts, those sciences, 
those improvements which pertain to their intellectual ad- 
vancement, or their merely temporal welfare. It leaves 
them, in the pursuit of these, to their own unaided resources. 
But this is totally inconsistent with the idea that its authors 
were men endued with all the fulness of scientific wisdom. 

II. The fiict that the sacred writers were ignorant as their 
contemporaries, as regards all matters of general knowledge, 
is no argument whatever against their inspiration. Here 
the question is reduced to this : Cannot a man be qualified 
for one profession without being an adept in every other ? 
Or, to come down to the point, must a scribe, an amanuen- 
sis, who merely writes down the letters, the documents which 
his sovereign dictates to him, be as well informed as the 
prime minister to whom he intrusts the most weighty affairs 
of his government ? Now the angels are God's prime min- 
isters, through whom he transacts the business of his provi- 
dential empire ; and therefore they excel in knowledge as in 
strength. They are represented as being " full of eyes with- 
in," — the eye in Scripture being the symbol of knowledge. 
Indeed the word cherub^ an ordinary designation of angels, 
signifies fulness of knowledge. So the Saviour declares that 
" of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels 
of heaven ;" "which declaration," says Dr. D wight, "can 
have force and pertinence only on the supposition, that 
nothing which is known of the works and ways of God is 
hidden from angels." But the writers of the Bible do not 
pretend to be any thing more than God's scribes, or aman- 
uenses, to set down the messages which he thought fit to 
communicate to men. "Holy men of old spake as they were 
moved by the Holy Ghost." " Which things we speak in 
words which the Holy Ghost teacheth." Must a man know 
as much as an ung-^l in order to set down the words which 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 153 

the Holy Spirit dictates ? What then becomes of the idea 
that we must give up their inspiration unless we can prove 
that they knew every thing ? Surely these men might act 
as God's secretaries, their hands might be employed and 
guided by his infallible inspiration to write down his words, 
his messages to men, even though their minds were not stored 
with all that knowledge of his works and ways which the 
chief officers of his government possess. 

III. It was in precise accordance with God's purpose in 
making a revelation, to employ men of little information on 
general subjects as the medium of communicating it to the 
world. That object was to impress mankind with the vast 
importance of the things that pertain to the soul, to life and 
godliness. " Seek first the kingdom of God," &c. " Labor 
not for the meat," &c. " What shall it profit a man," &c. 
Now conceive the Bible, like the Shastras of the Brahmins, 
and the Koran of Mohammed, had been interspersed with 
lectures and disquisitions on geography and astronomy, and 
other sciences. Perhaps, in that case, it would have had 
more readers than at present, but we cannot doubt that its 
end would have been in a great measure lost. Mere human 
science, thus enshrined in the same book with the science of 
salvation, would appear to be equally sanctioned by God 
himself as an object of pursuit ; and men w^ould feel them- 
selves as much at liberty to study the Bible to gratify their 
curiosity, as to improve their hearts and save their souls. 
But such was not his purpose in giving the Bible. That 
purpose w^as to teach men their immortality, to show them 
how to provide for it, and urge them to do so ; and that no 
other pursuit was worthy to be compared with this. Now 
it was precisely in conformity with this design that he should 
exclude from the Bible every thing but what pertained to 
this ; so that, as a person who passes at noonday a hundred 
different streams or sheets of water shall see an image of the 
sun in every one, even so on whatever page of the sacred 
oracles a man's eye might light, he should see but one image, 
even the eternal truth that bears upon the welfare and sal- 
vation of his soul, staring him in the face, and completely 
dissociated from every foreign or extraneous topic to dis- 
tract his attention or beguile his contemplation from it. 
Perceive you not, then, that it is just wdiat we might expect, 
that he should employ as the penmen of his sacred oracles 
men of little or no information on mere worldly, mere tern- 



154: SERMONS BY THE LATE 

poral subjects, and who therefore were under no temptations 
to mingle the displays of human learning, or the speculations 
of human wisdom, with the saving truth of God. 

IV. If it could be shown, ever so conclusively, that the 
sacred writers were, as regards scientific knowledge, fully 
equal to any of the moderns, it would not add a jot to the 
evidence of their inspiration, for 

1. That evidence would be of the same description as that 
derived from prophecy. The manifold prediction of future 
events in the sacred Scriptures, which in many instances 
have already come to pass, is justly regarded as a proof of 
their inspiration, because it evinces that knowledge of the 
future which belongs to God alone, and which no man can 
learn except by direct communication from the fountain of 
all wisdom. But now suppose the patriarchs, prophets, and 
apostles appeared to be gifted with a perfect acquaintance 
with every human science ; what would it prove ? Merely 
that they foresaw or foreknew all the improvements which 
the world, in future time, would make in the different de- 
partments of knowledge. But this is only one kind of proph- 
ecy; and infidelity, which, notwithstanding their foreknowl- 
edge of future civil and political events, persists in denying 
their inspiration, would just as soon deny it notwithstanding 
their foreknowledge of the future progress in science. While 
those who feel constrained to believe their inspiration on the 
ground of the former evidence, would not find that evidence 
at all strengthened if the latter were superadded, because it 
is precisely of the same kind. 

2. More particularly ; conceive it were possible to prove 
that the sacred writers were perfectly acquainted with our 
solar system, the fixed position of the sun, and- the rotary 
motion of the planets round it. But it is confidently assert- 
ed that the heathen philosopher Pythagoras discovered all 
this VOO years before Christ. Is there any difiiculty in sup- 
posing that the writers of the Bible discovered it a few cen- 
turies earlier with no more inspiration than Pythagoras? 
And so in general. It is notorious that there have been 
individuals in every period of the world who have made 
advances in different branches of knowledge fixr beyond the 
age hi which they lived ; so that if it could be shown that 
the sacred writers were ever so great proficients in every 
branch of human knowledge, infidelity would not be silenced 
yet. It would assert that this proficiency proved not that 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 155 

they were inspired, but only that they were in advance of 
their age. 

V. The acknowledged ignorance of the sacred writers in 
a scientific point of view, is a most unanswerable proof of 
their inspiration. Employ a comj^any of ignorant, unlettered 
men to frame a code of laws for this small State, and what 
work, think you, would they make of it ? But here is a 
company of ignorant, unlettered men who have undertaken 
to frame a code of laws for the whole world ; and the most 
intelligent minds in the world have pronounced it the most 
perfect conceivable ; that code, consisting of just two titles, 
the one containing four and the other six chapters, of from 
one to five lines each, and yet so perfect, so comprehensive 
that all the civilized legislation in the world has been based 
upon it. In addition to this they have given us a system of 
ethics, so complete as to be adapted to all the circumstances 
and relations of universal man, and so just and reasonable 
that a strict adherence to them is the sure road to honor, to 
respectability, to happiness. No man would ever forfeit his 
character, would ever degrade himself in the eyes of the 
world, would ever do the slightest injury to any of his fel- 
low-men, who should implicitly follow the moral teachings 
of this book. Then again, look at the sublime glimpses 
which these unlettered men afford us into the valley of 
vision ; the just and consistent views they give of God, and 
a future world : look at the masterly picture which they have 
given of man, portrayed in lines which the deepest philos- 
ophy had never discovered, but which the honest conscience 
of every one pronounces to be true to the life ; look at the 
grand, mysterious scheme which they have exhibited to re- 
deem him from his downfall, which human infidelity may sneer 
at, but which has filled thousands of the most gifted and ac- 
complished of earth's sons with an admiration too big to be 
expressed. Now how came these unlettered men to know 
so much ? How came these men, so ignorant on other topics, 
to write with such a fervor of truth, and accuracy of delin- 
eation, and keenness of discrimination, on subjects so vital 
to the temporal and immortal interests of man ? This ques- 
tion can never be answered without admitting their inspira- 
tion. No, my brethren, if I had reason to believe that the 
writers of these pages were profound philosophers, men 
whose minds were largely irradiated with the light of science 
and replenished w^ith the stores of know^ledge, I might sus- 



156 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

pect that such minds miglit have originated all that they 
have written without any help from God. But when I find 
such palpable tokens, that in all that pertains to human 
science and human learning the ignorant simplicity of chil- 
dren characterizes them, why then do I bow to the truth 
which beams from their pages on the most momentous of all 
subjects, assured that it is reflected directly from the throne. 
Perceiving they are but unlettered men,. I take knowledge 
of them that they liave been with Jesus, and drunk of the 
fountain of his inspiration. 

VI. We find a still further confirmation of this in the fact 
that all the discoveries of science in modern times have never 
been able to convict the sacred writers of a single error. 

1. We have already shown that, in order to make out 
their claim to inspiration, it is not necessary to prove them 
to be men of science. But in order to this, it is necessary 
to show that they have never advanced any thing contrary 
to any known fact or principle of science. For God cannot 
inspire a falsehood ; and the man who writes by his inspira- 
tion, whatever the subject be, must never depart from the 
truth. 

2. But there are two instances in which, it is said, the wri- 
ters of the Bible have done so. 

(1.) They speak of the earth as a fixed body, and the sun 
as moving round it. *' The course of the sun," says the 
Psalmist, "is from one end of the heavens to the other" — 
which is now known to be contrary to the fact. The sun is 
stationary, and the earth moves romid it. 

But, 1st. The Bible was written not for one class of men, 
but for all — and therefore adopts the popular forms of speech, 
describing things according to their appearances. Not only 
do men in general, but the most learned astronomer, in or- 
dinary speech, speaks of the rising and setting of the sun. 
Does that prove that he is mistaken ? Neither do similar 
forms of expression on the part of the sacred writers prove 
that they were. 

2d. If they had confined themselves to astronomical accur- 
acy, and spoken of the stationary position of the sun, and the 
motion of the earth around it, — facts which were unknown to 
the men of the world till within these few centuries, — their 
readers could not have understood them, unless they had 
broached the whole doctrine of the Copernican system, which 
would have been a blending of human science with divine, 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 157 

totally foreign from God's purpose in giving a revelation. 
Nothing was left them then, but to accommodate themselves 
to the apprehension of the mass of their readers, and to the 
modes of speech in common use with them — which, we have 
just seen, is far from arguing any error on their part. 

(2.) The other instance Avhich we alluded to is that in 
Joshua — "Bid the sun stand still." "Here," it is said, 
" must be some egregious error. The apparent stoppage of 
the sun could have been produced only by a real stoppage 
of the earth — the effect of which, considering its prodigious 
velocity in its orbit, would have been like the sudden arrest- 
ing of the motion of a vehicle — to fling off into the sky 
every movable thing on its surface." But allow your ve- 
hicle five seconds to stop in, instead of arresting it instan- 
taneously, and no such result Avill take place. So you have 
only to suppose a similar gradual stoppage of the earth's 
motion — occupying half a minute, instead of being instan- 
taneous — and no such result would take place in the case 
in question. 

3. In a word, it is impossible to prove — it never has been 
proved — that the sacred writers are at variance with any 
fact or principle of science, even in its latest developments. 
This is a most important consideration, especially w'hen you 
contrast the Bible with other pretended revelations. The 
sacred writings of the Hindoos assign to the w^orld an age of 
hundreds of thousands of years ; but no discovery, no inves- 
tigation has been able to decide that it has existed, at least 
in its present state — as the abode of man — longer than the 
chronology of the sacred writers indicates. So it has been 
remarked that the introduction of correct views of geogra- 
phy among the Hindoos is enough to destroy completely the 
credit of their sacred books — which, for example, represent 
the moon to be fifty thousand leagues higher than the sun, 
and shining by its own light, and the earth to be flat and 
triangular in shape. So the Koran of Mohammed tells us 
that mountains were made to hold down the earth, and keep 
it from flying away — and in other instances represents the 
earth as held in its position by means of anchors, or cords. 
So the most renowned philosophers of antiquity have fallen 
into scientific errors, the least of which, if found in the Bible, 
would annihilate its claims to inspiration. "What," asks an 
eloquent writer, " should we have thought of the Scriptures 
if they had taught that the univei'se was made of four ele- 

14 



158 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

ments, as all the ancient philosophers did — or had called the 
stars crystal, like Philolaus — or, like Empedocles, that each 
of our hemispheres has a sun of its own — or, like all the 
Egyptian sages, had taught that the heavens and the earth 
were formed by the motion of the air and the ascension of 
fire — or, like another, had taught that the sun shone only by 
a light reflected from the celestial spheres — or, like Anaxago- 
ras, had made it a mass of hot iron, and the earth a moun- 
tain whose roots go infinitely deep. But the names we have 
mentioned are among the brightest minds of all antiquity. 
How comes it, then, that the writers of the Bible, confessedly 
far inferior to them in intellectual furniture, though they are 
perpetually making allusions to the very same subjects, have 
never fallen into similar errors, and that all the progress 
which science has made in the near two thousand years since 
the canon of Scripture was completed, has never been able to 
convict its writers of a single mistake — a single false state- 
ment — a single erroneous opinion on any branch of science ? 
Admit that their minds were controlled — that their pens were 
guided — that their statements were dictated by the Spirit of 
Eternal Truth, and you have a ready answer. But by those 
who deny that fact no rational answer to this question can 
be given. 

1. If these things are so, then it follows that those who 
deny the inspiration of the sacred writers on the ground of 
their ignorance on general subjects, and those w^ho endeavor 
to prove that their minds were furnished with correct views 
on every branch of knowledge, as proof of their inspiration, 
are both in the wrong. The latter is not true as a fact, and 
if it were, it would add nothing to the evidence that they 
spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. If it could be 
proved that they were wise as angels, tlie infidel, who has no 
difficulty in rejecting the sun-bright testimony to their inspi- 
ration afforded by their miracles and their prophecies, would 
have as little difficulty in rejecting the testimony arising 
from this. But, on the other hand, admit their w^ant of in- 
formation on all subjects except those which pertain to life 
and godliness, and their claim to inspiration, so far from be- 
ing overthrown, is thereby surrounded with a bulwark of 
defence, against which the rage of the adversary and his 
fiercest onsets must alike be powerless. That men, con- 
fessedly ignorant, illiterate, most of whom lived in an age of 
the world when there were no other books in existence — no 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 159 

previous models from which to copy — no previously accumu- 
lated stores of philosophy from which to draw their ins})ira- 
tion, should yet promulgate views so just, so truthful, so sub- 
lime, on subjects the furthest removed from the ken of hu- 
man comprehension — should grasp, with a fearless hand, 
those topics which embrace the w^hole wide range of human 
character, and human responsibility, and human destiny — 
which involve the character, the honor, and the principles of 
the government of the Lord of all, and his ways and pur- 
poses respecting the human race, throughout all time, through- 
out all eternity, and yet do such ample justice to them all — 
is a fact which no honest reader of the Bible can ever deny, 
and no denier of its inspiration, though he were inspired with 
all the wisdom of Satan, can ever account for. 

2. Yes, dear hearers, admit that to the writers of the Bible 
the stores of human wisdom, the magazines of human knowl- 
edge were " a spring shut up and a fountain sealed," and 
you stultify your reason if you deny that the heavenly wisdom 
which flows from their pens, and shines in their pages, and 
sparkles in their lives — which the loftiest science could never 
equal, and from which the proudest philosophy might learn 
lessons which she never dreamt of — could have been commu- 
nicated to them but by an inspiring God. But if so, then 
to reject it is to excite a controversy with God and put your 
soul in peril. Admit that the shepherds and the herdsmen 
who wrote the Old Testament were ignorant men, and you 
preclude the possibility of denying that the faithful portrait 
which they give of you as a sin-tainted creature, from the 
outermost surface of your actions to the innermost core of 
your heart — and the awful picture they give of God, as just, 
a consuming fire, unquenchable, kindled into the fiercest fury 
against every form of sin — are all of the tracery of that Spirit 
whose mouthpiece they could only have been. Of course 
they are all truth — and it is as much as your soul is worth to 
shut your eyes or close your ears against them. Admit that 
the fishermen and tent-makers who wrote the gospel were 
unlettered men, and you cannot believe the great mystery of 
godliness which they promulgated — God manifest in the 
liesh, crucified on earth, and received up into glory — was of 
their own devising. You must believe they could have 
learned it only from heaven. But if so, then it is what it 
professes to be — Heaven's own — Heaven's first, and last, and 
only method to save your soul — and to reject it is to cut 



160 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

away your last anchor and drift helplessly, hopelessly, on the 
breakers of wrath eternal. Oh, believe it is not — it cannot be 
mere unlettered shepherds and fishermen who originated 
those tones of sovereign authority, that utter their voices, 
like commanding thunders, through this book — those denun- 
ciations of offended justice, that Hash, like angry lightnings, 
athwart its pages — those effusions of unfathomable mercy 
with which its blessed leaves are dripping. It is God, the 
sovereign, that commands. It is God, the just, that de- 
nounces. It is God, the merciful, that yearns and pleads. 
Answer it to thy conscience^ if thou canst — answer it to him- 
self, if thou darest — if thou hear him not. 



■^-•-•- 



^^ And it is his glonj to pass over a transgression.^'* — Pro v. xix. 11. 

The Bible, says a French skeptic of the school of Voltaire, 
contains nothing original on the score of morals. From the 
writings of the ancient sages, from the noble monuments of 
the wisdom of antiquity, I promise to extract a code of 
ethics which shall be as unexceptionable, as full, as perfect as 
Moses, or Solomon, or as Jesus Christ have taught. It is 
much easier to promise than to perform. He to whom I 
allude must either have never read the words of the text, or 
never felt their meaning, or he would have found and felt 
the task of proving the prophets and thq Son of God to be 
copyists from heathen sages and sophists as regards the prin- 
ciples and precepts of human duty, were as hopeless as to 
prove, — as I remarked on the last Sabbath, — that the linea- 
ments of infinite power, and majesty, and glory, with which 
the living God is clothed by the pencil of revelation, are but 
the transcript of that human weakness and imbecility which 
heathen antiquity ascribes to her imagined deities. One of 
these sages, after summing up the system of education 
adopted by the ancient Persians, observes that it was the 
most perfect conceivable, because it was in the highest 
degree fitted to qualify a man to do good to his friends and 
to punish his enemies. Another, while striving to arouse 
one of his backslidden pupils to the pursuit of virtue, — in his 
sense of the term, — urges as one of the strongest motives, 
that the course of conduct which he prescribes, is the only 



KEV. WM. B. WEED. 161 

one which will make hirn a blessing to his friends and a 
terror to his foes. It thus appears that in an age when glory 
was the watchword on every lip, when the child, almost in his 
swaddling clothes, was taught to dream of the glory of mar- 
tial conquest, of the glory of civic attainments, the gloiy of 
eloquence, ay, and the glory of revenge, no one ever thought 
of preaching, or aspiring to, the glory of forgiveness. Here, 
then, the Bible is original — and I may add — fundamentally 
orio^inal. For I think it will not be difficult to show that a 
system of morality from which forgiveness is excluded, and 
a system which makes the forgiveness of injuries a cardinal 
virtue, are as widely asunder as thouglit can make them ; 
that the one degrades man to the character of a slave of im- 
pulse ; the other invests him with the majesty of a self-con- 
queror. The one confines him within the poor limits of self ; 
the other opens to his soul the unlimited range of universal 
benevolence. The one humbles him before his enemies, and 
the other gives him complete victory over them. The one 
goes far to assimilate him to the beasts that perish, and the 
other goes far to assimilate him to the great God. 

I. It is glorious for a man to pass over a transgression, 
because it implies selt-conquest. 1st. It is glorious for a 
man to conquer himself. Better, says Solomon, is he that 
ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city ; and had Alexan- 
der, — when he wept because there were no more worlds to 
conquer, — had he been able to contemplate his own moral 
nature in that light which the Spirit of God lent to the son 
of David, he might have dried his tears, for within himself 
he would have found a world, — a yet unconquered world, as 
his previous ebullitions of passion in murdering his bosom 
friends, and dooming his unresisting enemies to death, abun- 
dantly testified — a world the conquest of which he w^ould 
have found far more difficult than to quell the effeminate 
hosts of Persia, and far more glorious than stripping the 
diadem from the head of Darius had been. For what is the 
aspect which the moral nature of man presents ? There is a 
host of appetites and passions and feelings there, impatient 
of any other control than the suggestions of self-interest, and 
ready to sacrifice to that all considerations of future advan- 
tage and of the general good. Reason is the appointed viceroy 
of heaven to keep them in subjection ; but she sits on a pre- 
carious throne. The line of policy which she prescribes, and 
that which passion suggests, ai-e diametrically opposed ; and 



162 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

thus the latter maintains an attitude of perpetual rebellion 
against the former, and an irreconcilable one. Where sub- 
jects are disaffected towards their government on the ground 
of maladministration or alleged grievances, the difficulty 
may be adjusted by mutual concession ; but where the sub- 
ject is determined not to be governed at all by those princi- 
ples of policy which the ruler prescribes, and persists in that 
determination, there the difference is vital ; an open rupture 
is inevitable, the government must be annihilated or the 
subject must be crushed. And such is the mutual relation 
of reason and passion. They differ fundamentally. The eye 
of reason is telescopic, the eye of passion is microscopic. The 
one takes in all the consequences which may flow from a 
single action. The other takes in only one — its bearing 
upon self. The one considers that action as it stands related 
to the general interest. The other considers it as it stands 
related to the interest of self. Reason prescribes that the 
apparent good of the moment ought to be sacrificed to a 
greater and more real good. Passion dictates the apparent 
good of the moment as the only good, outweighing .and de- 
manding the sacrifice of whatever, in the shape of happiness, 
all future time or eternity can yield. And besides, in this 
controversy the heart, the governing impulse, takes sides 
against reason, and in favor of rebellious passion, and always 
inclines to decide the contest in favor of the latter. Why 
else is the history of the greater part of mankind made up of 
successive sacrifices of the proffered glories of eternity to the 
cravings of present indulgence ? But if these things be so, 
then you see the difficulty and the consequent glory of self- 
control. To subdue the risii^ impulse of present gratifica- 
tion, to quell the demands of momentary feeling, and amid the 
storm and whirlwind of passion, to hear and obey the still 
small voice of reason, and coolly to examine and deliberately 
to act upon her suggestions, to calmly weigh results and 
consequences, and give the future a controlling power over 
the present, — and all this in despite of the imperious demands 
of passion's host impatient of control : — the man who deems 
lightly of the glory of such a conquest as this, shows most 
conclusively that he has never attempted it. Well might 
the wise man give the preference to the conqueror ot* self 
over the taker of cities. A commanding officer, with the 
aid of a few troops and pieces of cannon, can batter down 
the walls of a city in a few days or hours. But how many 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 163 

pei^sons do you see who, with all the available aid which this 
world can afford — (and men may and do see, even in the 
Uglit of worldly interest, the importance of self-control), — 
have been trying for years to conquer themselves, and have 
never done it yet. 

2d. Now I said that he who forgives an injury conquers 
himself. Whether an attempt has been made to infringe on 
his rights as a citizen, whether the arrows of detraction have 
assailed his standing as a member of society, or the mildew 
of calumny hath been breathed on his character as a man ; 
whether open enemies have sought to break down his repu- 
tation for honor, for integrity, for veracity, or false friends 
have been detected in secret attempts to undermine it, — in 
every such case self-interest has been wounded ; and in every 
such case passion, the noisy brawhng advocate and sworn 
devotee of self-interest, arises at once and demands satisfac- 
tion. Not Moloch, to whom the Hebrew child was made to 
pass through the flames of death, was deemed more insatia- 
ble of human blood than the human passions, aroused by 
injury, are for retribution on the injuring one. Not more 
naturally do the cravings of hunger call for animal food, than 
the cravings of passion, excited by offered wrongs, demand 
the aliment of vengeance. And what if reason suggests the 
greater resulting advantages of forgiveness, of wliich I am 
hereafter to speak ? True to its nature, passion is blind to 
future consequences. It has been excited, and it demands im- 
mediate gratification. It has been affronted, and it demands 
an immediate sacrifice. Its thirst has been inflamed, and it 
demands the immediate draught of vengeance. See you 
what a tremendous effort it must cost, under such circum- 
stances, to repress the claims of self, to silence the voice of 
passion, to give scope to the dictates of reason, and to for- 
give ? If self-control is difficult, and therefore glorious ; for- 
giveness, which involves it, must be as difficult, and as glori- 
ous. But I remark — 

II. It is glorious for a man to pass over a transgression, 
if we consider the consequences of forgiveness. And here 
I wish you to observe, 

1st. It gives you the victory over the injuring party. It 
does so by disarming him. When a man attacks the rights, 
or interest, or reputation of another, he naturally expects to 
excite a spirit of retaliation ; and it yields him a sort of 
gratification to find that his malevolent assaults have pro- 



161 SKRMOXS BY THE LATE 

duced their effect on the object of thein, and enkindled feel- 
ings of wounded pride or angry resistance in his breast ; or 
else, on the other hand, he expects to see the injured one 
yield himself an unresisting victim to his assaults, and to 
enjoy the satisfaction of witnessing his impotent writhings. 
But what if he find the arrows of his malevolence, instead 
of goading the injured party to vengeance — instead of pros- 
trating him at his feet — received and quenched in the seven- 
fold shield of forgiveness ? What it his expected victim, 
instead of turning at bay and assaulting him in return, in- 
stead of yielding and wincing, and trembling like a stricken 
beast of game, stands erect in the unflinching majesty of selt- 
control, unmoved by all his persecutor can do, — so little 
moved that, he forgets his wrongs and is ready to forgive 
them the moment they are inflicted ? That persecutor is 
foiled. Had the injured party tamely yielded, the man would 
have despised him. Had the injured party showed a spirit 
of resentment or retaliation, his conduct would have been 
human, and the man would have hated him. But when the 
injured party forgives, his conduct is godlike, and the man 
fears him. The wronged one, by yielding, would have placed 
himself beneath the aggressor. By retaliating, he would 
have placed himself on a level with him. But by forgiving, 
he places himself above, immeasurably above him. And the 
feelings of that aggressor, under such circumstances, it is 
vain to attempt to describe. The consciousness of guilt, the 
consciousness of an unworthy purpose, contrasted with that 
firmness of soul which his malice could not move, and that 
greatness of soul which could pardon it, covers his cheek 
with the blush of shame and heaps coals of fire on his head. 
He stands rebuked and overawed, as in the presence of a 
superior power. And you who adopt no other principles of 
judgment than those of worldly wisdom, judge ye whether 
it be better for an injured man to gratify his enemy by re- 
taliation, or to make him ashamed by forgiveness ; whether 
it be more glorious for an injured man to wreak his ven- 
geance on the person of the aggressor, or to subdue his spirit 
by subduing his own, A wild beast can do the former, but 
none but a ynan^ and a man in the highest and most glorious 
sense of the word, can do the latter. 

2d. After what has been said, I need scarcely remark that 
another effect of forgiveness is to prevent the repetition of 
wrongs. If the waves of the sea were endued mth sense 



RICY. WM. B. WEED. 165 

and rejison, they would soon cease to beat against the rocks 
on which they can produce no impression. But forgiveness 
is more than the insensible, unmoved rock. It has the elastic, 
living property of flinging back on the injurer the waves 
which his malignant spirit hath raised. I know there are 
some monsters in history, like King John of England, in his 
early days, or like Absalom in all his days, who have made 
forgiveness only a passport to fresh aggressions. But in 
general it is not so ; else why do we find many examples of 
kings, and princes, and usurpers who, from motives of policy, 
and not from any exalted notions of right, when they have 
discovered conspiracies against their government or life, have 
pardoned the fomenters of them, as the best method of in- 
suring their personal safety and consolidating their authority? 
It is rare that vou find a man so lost to all sense of feelino^ 
as, when he perceives all his attempts to wound another's 
peace are vain, and that, like snows falling on the sea, they are 
at once lost and swallowed up by forgiveness, will long per- 
sist in those attempts. If admiration of that firm, self-bal- 
anced spirit do not destroy his enmity, it at least will awake 
his respect. Or, if he shame not to contend with that gen- 
erous spirit, at least the hoj^elessness of the contest will make 
him relinquish it. If he shrink not from the disgrace of 
wronging that forgiving spirit, at least he will feel that he 
is playing a losing game in permitting him to enjoy the ever- 
increasing glory of forgiving him. ]N^o, it is not forgiveness 
but revenge, which multiplies injuries and fills this world 
with violence. Revenge is no nice calculator. Instead of 
demanding an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, it fre- 
quently dejnands an eye for a tooth. It returns the wrong 
received with compound interest, and thus creates a balance 
against itself and in favor of the wrong-doer, and hence the 
long series of mutual retaliations — each increasing in aggra- 
vation — which so often mark the differences of individuals 
and nations. I conclude then, that if the spirit of revenge 
were banished from this world, the spirit of injustice would 
speedily be banished with it. It* wrongs henceforth were 
requited only with forgiveness, there would soon be none 
to forgive. Instead of the fuel of retaliation in every breast 
to spread and aggravate the fires of wrong and injustice, 
you would find the \vaters of forgiveness there to quench it. 
And wars and fis^htintrs would cease, and bloodshed and car- 
nage would cease; and man's inhumanity to man would 



166 SEiaiONis BV THK LATE 

make countless thousands mourn no more ; and love and 
mercy would sit enthroned m the habitations of cruelty. 
Every man who overlooks a transgression contributes to- 
Avards bringing about this state of things, and this is another 
item in his glory. 

III. But another collateral consideration which makes for- 
giveness glorious is its extreme rarity. When we read of 
this or that tyrant ordering hundreds or thousands of his 
subjects to be destroyed because they had offended him, or 
when we read of a conqueror directing the garrison of a 
town to be put to the sword because they had deferred their 
surrender longer than suited his convenience, we pass over 
these things almost as matters of course. This vindictive 
spirit is so universal among men, that the history of its ebul- 
litions creates almost as little interest in our minds as the 
uniform rising and falling of yonder tide. When we see 
the Bruce of Scotland stabbing his treacherous enemy we 
simply say, It is human nature, and so pass it by. But w^hen 
we hear the last Saxon king of England promising his un- 
natural brother — w^ho had leagued with foreigners to strip 
off his crown — a free pardon and restoration to all his for- 
mer immunities if he would return to his allegiance, we are 
struck at once with admiration of the conduct of that mon- 
arch. We feel that he did what thousands in the same 
circumstances would not have done, and that that single act 
places him on an eminence of moral elevation far beyond the 
promiscuous crowd of tyrants and despots, who have never 
dreamed that there were any other means of avenging them- 
selves upon their enemies than the axe and the block, the 
gibbet and the fagot. And so in general. Revenge is too 
hackneyed, too common, too vulgar a mode of requiting in- 
juries to be glorious, if for no other reason. The beast of 
the forest, when attacked by his enemy, turns and fastens 
his fangs in his throat. The wild man of the forest lurks for 
his foe in the darkling shades, and aims his secret arrow at 
his heart. The rude Highlander whom his neighbor hath 
wronged, swears the deadly feud against him, and bequeaths 
his legacy of vengeance to his posterity. There can be no 
honor in imitating wild beasts, and savages, and barbarians, 
in their method of redressing wrongs. But for that very 
reason the method of forgiveness is glorious. It is a rare,^ 
a choice, a select method. It is unknown to the whole dumb* 
creation. It is unknown to the savage and barbarian. It is 



KEV. WM. B. WEED. 167 

known to those, it is practised by those alone, who have most 
of the image of God, and most of the temper and spirit of 
heaven. I remark then — 

IV. It is glorious for a man to overlook transgression be- 
cause it is like God. God could make worlds and iix them 
in their orbits in the skies by the mere word of his power. 
He could make intelligent creatures and continue them in 
existence by the mere word of his power. He could order 
his providential economy, both as it relates to the animate 
and inanimate, to the intelligent and non-intelligent creation, 
by the mere word of his power. In all this, speaking after 
the manner of men, no extraordinary effort, no peculiar 
sacrifice was required. But when we see the Godhead de- 
vising a method by which the great interests of his kingdom 
may be sustained, and yet his enemies be pardoned ; when 
we contemplate the vast, the stupendous sacrifice which was 
the price of that forgiveness, the amazing condescension 
which it involved, and the wondrous mercy which it dis- 
played, — the glory of God as the great Creator, and as the 
great Providential Ruler, we forget for the moment in the 
contemplation of his glory, in which power, and condescen- 
sion, and mercy all are blended, as the great Forgiver. 

Here the whole Deity is known, 

Nor dares a creature ^uess 
Which of the glories brightest shone, 

The glory or the grace. 

And of that glory, and of that character, every man who 
from the heart forgives an injury, partakes. He takes one 
step towards assimilating himself to that perfection, that 
attribute of the Godhead. He who can say to the man who 
has Avronged him, " Bear witness for me, ye celestial hosts ! 
Such mercy and such pardon as my soul accords to thee and 
begs of Heaven to show thee, may such befall me in my dying 
hour" — Heaven bears witness to him that, in so far, he has 
copied the merciful spirit of a forgiving God. 

1st. You see in what the true dignity of the human char- 
acter consists. What is the feeling excited by those out- 
bursts of angry passion, usually ending in outrage and blood- 
shed, which have so often disgraced our country of late 
years ? It is a feeling of unmingled disgust. That man — 
his countenance swollen and distorted, and his eyes bloodshot 
with rage, rushing upon his enemy with the club, the bowie- 
knife, the pistol, and sacrificing his blood to the demon of 



168 SERMONS BY TUK LATE 

revenge — look at him ! What is he ? Why the miserable, 
wretclied slave of passion, which has bound in fetters all 
that is godlike in his nature, and given scope only to what is 
brutish. Oh, how far above this disgusting caricature of an 
immortal spirit does that self-conqueror tower, in whose 
bosom triumphant reason reigns and curbs rebellious passion, 
and on whose brow the majesty of a forgiving spirit sits en- 
throned ! He hath built around his soul a bulwark of self- 
possession, which scoffs and sneers, calumny and detraction 
assail in vain. The touch of forgiveness which they en- 
counter there, sends them back in the shape of burning coals 
on the head of him who sent them. If it were permitted to 
paint the likeness, I mean the external features of the Deity, 
I would select as a pattern the countenance of him whose 
heart had never harbored a revengeful feehng — ay, and 
that would be the Lord Jesus Christ, the only man in whom 
the glory of forgiveness was never sullied by a single act or 
thought of vengeance : — " the brightness of his glory and 
the express image of his person." 

2d. You see the true method of conquering your enemies. 
Here is a man who has grievously wronged you. You can- 
not be satisfied without some requital. You must obtain 
some advantage over him. How shall you do it ? I answer, 
Forgive him. If he be a man of principle, be assured that 
nothing will sooner bring him to repentance and acknowledg- 
ment. And if he be an unprincipled man, be assured that 
he would rather you w^ould do any thing than that. By that 
act you place yourself beyond his reach. You place your- 
self above him. By w^ronging you he shows that he is not 
independent of you. By forgiving him you show that you 
are independent of him. For example : by assailing your 
character, he shows that there is that in you of sufficient 
consequence to touch his feelings of malice or envy. By 
forgiving him you show that nothing either in liim, or done 
by him, can affect yours. In a word, his conduct shows him 
capable of an unworthy action. Yours shows you to be 
above it, and therefore above him. I have seen it somewhere 
remarked, and never was a truer observation, that if the 
greatest man on earth should do an injury to the humblest, 
the latter could instantly make himself greater than the for- 
mer by forgiving it. 

3d. This subject, fellow-sinner, strongly suggests to you 
the necessity of the grace of God. I have said that, in that 



KE\^ AVM. B. WEED, 169 

mental conflict which a sense of wrongs creates, the natural 
impulse of the heart takes sides with passion, and thus sets 
the voice of reason at defiance. Such is the fact in every 
case where the sword of revenge is drawn, or its dagger 
aimed. What then shall tarn the scale of conflict, and give 
reason the victory, and give room for the exercise and for 
acquiring the glory of forgiveness ? I answer. The grace of 
God. That grace transforms, regenerates, creates anew the 
ruling principle of the heart, divorces it from its subser- 
viency to the animal feelings of which revenge is one, unites 
it to reason itself enlightened by the spirit of holiness, and 
from this union the spirit of forgiveness springs. Because 
this union existed in the king of Israel, he could pardon 
the man who cursed him. Because this union was perfect 
in the King of Saints, he could pray for the men who cruci- 
fied him. The natural man is in a state of bondage to him- 
self. The grace of God gives him the victory over himself. 
The natural man is a slave of passion. The grace of God 
makes him the freeman of enlightened reason, and " makes 
every member, every sense, in sweet subjection lie." If then 
you have tried, and tried in vain, to acquire the habitual 
power of self-control, oh, seek the alliance of God's almighty 
grace. Henceforth when the storm of angry passion rises, 
that grace will come to your aid ; and while it enables you 
to subdue yourself, will give you the noblest victory of for- 
giveness, and deliver you from all those bitter, corroding, 
harassing feelings, which are sure to attend the indulgence 
of a revengeful spirit. 

You see, fellow-Christian, how incompatible is a spirit of 
revenge with the character which you profess. A revengeful, 
unforgiving Christian is a solecism in the very nature of 
things. There is no such thing in the world. " As many 
as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God." 
And can the son find no pleasure in the exercise of forgive- 
ness, which the Father scrupled not to sacrifice the blood of 
Emanuel in order to exercise ? Is it the greatest glory of 
God to forgive, and do you shame to aspire to that glory ? 
Can that be a humiliation in you, which forms the brightest 
gem in the crown of your Father in heaven ? The Christian 
who regards forgiveness in this light, who refuses from the 
heart to forgive a man who has wronged him, because he 
deems he should demean himself thereby, cuts himself off 
from 9.11 hope of God's forgiveness. For if he cannot stoop 

15 



170 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

SO low as to pardon his fellow-worm, how can he expect 
the Infinite Jehovah should ever stoop so low as to pardon 
him? 

And now, fellow-Christian, if now or ever you find yourself 
in circumstances where it is necessary to choose between the 
exercise of revenge on the one hand, and of forgiveness on 
the other — if from whatever quarter you have been the sub- 
ject of an unmerited wrong; and if a false estimate of what 
is due to pride of character — if the dread of the world's 
opinion — if the fear of being derided as pusillanimous, or of 
being despised as having succumbed to the aggressor, should 
you pass over his transgression, unite to awaken and to cher- 
ish the spirit of resentment in your breast — remember that 
these are the considerations which operate on the mind of the 
worldling, the sinner, the blinded victim of unholy passion. 
With him they are omnipotent. They expel every kindly, 
every gentle, every merciful feeling from his heart, and en- 
throne the fiend of vengeance there. But you, whose eyes 
divine grace and faith — the first-born daughter of grace — 
have purged, and given you to contemplate not the imme- 
diate results of acts and feelings only, but their bearing on the 
interests of all time, and of eternity — pause and look round 
you, before you resolve to retaliate and resolve not to forgive. 
See how large a portion of the sorrow, the violence, the 
misery, the woe, which have converted this once fair and 
glorious creation into a charnel-house — a field of blood — are 
the direct ofispring of revenge. Then turn to that house of 
woe and pain to which Satan and his angels have been con- 
signed by the wrath of God. There, too, revenge reigns 
paramount. It pervades and rules in all the legions of the 
infernal host. It goads them to madness against the God 
who is too strong for them, and prompts them to fill his 
kingdom with evil and with ruin. Now change the scene 
once more. Turn to that holy, happy place where the Divine 
Being dwells. What is the most prominent object that at- 
tracts your sight in those celestial realms ? It is the rain- 
bow that is round about the throne — the bow of promise — 
the token of mercy — the sign which proclaims to the heaven- 
ly host that there is forgiveness with God for man. And 
what do they think of it ? " Worthy is the Lamb that was 
slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, 
and honor, and glory, and blessing." " Blessing, and honor, 
and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth on the throne, 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 171 

and to the Lamb, for ever and ever." Wherefore ? Because 
the Lamb that was slain furnished those precious blood-drops, 
by passing through which the rays of eternal justice were 
made to form that rainbow of forgiveness which overarches 
the throne of God. With these things before you, revenge 
if you can. Oh, when you think how the fruits of revenge 
are evil, and only evil — while all the good which every son or 
daughter of this world — nay, all the good which you your- 
self have ever enjoyed is the direct offspring of forgiveness — 
divine forgiveness — can you hesitate whether to obtain repa- 
ration for the wrong you have suffered, by the exercise of 
that feeling which is the especial characteristic of those spirits 
of which hell is the only appropriate dwelling-place, or by the 
exercise of that feeling for which the God of all is glorified 
by the inhabitants of heaven ? Can you doubt whether to 
retaliate like Satan, or to forgive like God ? 



■» ♦ » 



*' They feared the Lord^ and served their own gods^ — 
2 Kings xvii. 33. 

We have spoken of the Samaritans, not long ago, in their 
relations to the Jews, and of their peculiar exclusiveness and 
bigotry. What is related of them in the text we shall per- 
haps find still more instructive, both in a doctrinal and prac- 
tical point of view. We would direct your attention — 

I. To the origin and original principles of their peculiar 
religious system — fundamentally different from any which 
has been openly professed by any people with whom either 
sacred or profane history acquaints us — and also to its prac- 
tical operation as developed in their subsequent history. 

1st. As to the original principles of their religious system. 
These, their original confession of faith, is given in short 
metre in the text. " They feared the Lord, and served their 
own [heathen] gods." How came they by such a strange 
amalgam — such an oil-and-water of a religion — composed of 
two such discordant creeds? The answer is, they acquired 
the latter from education, and they were frightened into the 
former. We told you heretofore, in the words of the sacred 
historian, how the king of Assyria, having conquered the 



172 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

kingdom of Israel, and carried away great numbers of its 
inhabitants — particularly from the cities of Samaria — into 
his own country, sent a number of colonists from the differ- 
ent tribes of his own heathen subjects to take their places. 
At the beginning of their dwelling there, they feared not 
the Lord — therefore the Lord sent lions among them, which 
slew some of them. They therefore appealed to the king of 
Assyria, saying — "The nations which thou hast removed 
into the cities of Samaria know not the manner of the God 
of the land — therefore he hath sent lions among them." 
The king, acting apparently upon the principle by which 
Gibbon informs us the Roman magistrates were governed, 
that all religions were equally useful as long as the people 
believed them to be equally true, sent them one of the cap- 
tive Jewish priests to teach them the manner of the God of 
the land. He came, accordingly, and dwelt among them — 
and the result was that they adopted the Jewish religion, 
not as a substitute for their idolatrous systems, but as a sup- 
plement to them. The remembrance of former associations 
attached them to their old relisfions. The remembrance of 
the lions urged them to embrace the new one — and there- 
fore, as they would not forsake the deities that education 
had taught them to love, and could not spurn the deity 
whom experience had taught them to fear — they patched up 
a religion that included both. They set up the gods of the 
various tribes to which they respectively belonged — the men 
of Babylon set up Succoth Benoth ; the men of Cuth, Ner- 
gal ; the men of Hamath, Ashima ; and the Avites set up 
and worshipped ISTibhaz and Tartak; and the Sepharvites 
burnt their children in fear to Adrammelech and Anamme- 
lech — but they all, after a fashion, feared the Lord. Such 
was their religion. 

2d. Now what was the practical operation of this system ? 
We answer, in one word — the Samaritans were never dis- 
tinguished or known as a religious people, in any sense of the 
word. Their two contradictory principles — to fear God and 
adhere to their idols — appear to have mutually neutralized 
each other, and left them without any principle at all. The 
effect of adopting two inconsistent religions into their creed 
was, that they were never faithful to either. The Jewish 
historian has drawn their character in the following words — 
" When they see the Jews in prosperity, they pretend that 
they are changed and allied to them, and call them kinsmen, 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 1 ,3 

as though they were derived from Joseph, and had, by that 
means, an original alliance with them; but when they see 
them falling into a low condition, they say they are no way 
related to them, and that the Jews have no right to expect 
any kindness or marks of kindred from them, but they de- 
clare that they are sojourners that come from other countries. 
Thus, when Alexander the Great visited Jerusalem — when 
he saw in the high priest the same person, as he declared, 
who had previously appeared to him in a dream and promised 
him the conquest of Persia — when he had been shown the 
prophecies of Daniel, announcing him as the predestined 
conqueror of that empire — all this so favorably disposed him 
towards the Jews, that he bestowed upon their nation the 
most distinguished marks of his friendship. And the next we 
hear is, the time-serving Samaritans sending an embassy to 
him assuring him that they were Hebrews too, and request- 
ing that the same privileges and marks of favor might be 
extended to them. When, on the other hand, at a somewhat 
later period Antiochus, king of Assyria, had invaded Judea, 
plundered their temple, and offered swine's flesh on their 
altar of burnt-offerings, and required the people on pain of 
death to abjure the religion of their fathers — these same 
Samaritans were foremost to disown all part and lot with the 
people of God, both in a national and ecclesiastical point of 
\ie\Vy and addressed a letter to King Antiochus, the god — 
so they style him — assuring him that they were Medes and 
Persians, and not Jews — but aliens from their nation and 
their customs, and requesting that the temple they had built 
on Mount Gerizim might be dedicated to the heathen deity, 
Jupiter — w^hich was done accordingly. Such w^as the re- 
ligion of the Samaritans, and such its fruits. 

II, We are led to observe how exceedingly feeble and 
practically impotent is the simple fear of God as a religious 
principle. But — 

1st. In what sense do we use the expression — "fear of 
God ?" I answer, in the same sense in which it is used in 
the text: "They feared the Lord and served their own 
gods." Now there is a fear of God which is the beginning 
of wisdom, the sum and substance of true piety. It consists 
in right feeling towards God, and is perfectly synonymous 
with the love of him. " Fear God and keep his command- 
ments ; for this is the w^hole duty of man." Right feeling 
towards him, manifested in obedience to his commands, 

15* 



174 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

is the sum of human duty. But assuredly this cannot be 
the meaning of the word when it is said the Samaritans 
feared the Lord and served their own gods; for at this 
rate a man may serve two masters, which the Saviour de- 
clares to be impossible ; yea, at this rate the writer of this 
history contradicts himself. In the text he gives their origi- 
nal character: "They feared the Lord and served their 
own gods." In the next verse he informs us that they never 
changed that character : " Unto this day they do after their 
former mannei^ ; they fear not the Lord." Is it not obvious 
that the fear of the Lord is used in these two passages in 
widely different senses — so different that the one is perfectly 
consistent with the absence of the other ? In the latter case, 
as you perceive from the context, it means the right feeling 
towards him which is exhibited in obedience to his com- 
mandments and statutes. In the former case, it means sim- 
ply that they were afraid of him, just as I am afraid of one 
who, I think, is going to kill me ; just as they were afraid of 
the lions. They feared the latter because they slew some of 
them. When they came to the conclusion that God had 
sent these wild beasts among them, they feared him in the 
same sense. And this was all the feeling that they ever ap- 
pear to have had for him. Behold then a religion which con- 
sists simply in being afraid of God ! While we proceed to 
delineate it, let every one present be busy with the question 
whether his religion — if he professes to have any — has aught 
in common with it ? 

2d. Such a religion includes in its conception but a part of 
God. It sees him in his severity, but cannot comprehend 
his goodness. It trembles at his justice, but never learns to 
estimate his grace. It sees him sending lions to destroy, but 
has no eye for that other aspect in which he is seen sending 
his own martyr-Lamb to save. All that is practically influen- 
tial in such a religion is derived from the terrible, the Adndic- 
tive, the avenging in Jehovah. What constitutes the real 
omnipotence of God in his influence upon his creatures — the 
tender mercies with which his heart is stored, the sweetness 
of grace that breathes and charms in his gospel — to this it is 
all insensible. It hath an ear for the thunders that proceed 
out of his throne, but it hath no eye for the rainbow, like 
unto an emerald, which is round about it. It paralyzes, in 
one word, the richest half of the Almighty, completely de- 
priving it of its power over the heart — over the man. 



EEV. WM. B. WEED. 175 

3d. Such a religion is practically operative only in relation 
to a part — and that the selfish part — of the moral system of 
of the man. Conceive a person, hitherto unknown to you, 
comes and settles down as your next-door neighbor. You 
speedily discover that he is a powerful and dangerous man 
from whom you have every thing to fear. Well, you cannot 
henceforth exclude him from your arrangements, you cannot 
be indifferent to his vicinity. He is there, and you cannot 
help it — but you act henceforth on the principle of having 
as little as possible to do with him consistently with keeping 
the peace with him. Whatever attentions and courtesies are 
requisite for this you accord — -just because it is your interest 
— just to keep the peace. These Samaritans acted on the 
same principle. They had established themselves in Judea, 
and they found a dangerous neighbor there — God. They 
knew nothing of him before — they knew nothing of him now, 
except that he was capable of inflicting judgments on them. 
They therefore proposed to propitiate him — to fall into the 
practice of his religion just so far as to keep him from harm- 
ing them, and no further. All selfishness, of course, from 
beginning to end. Now we think it would not be needful 
to go far to detect a specimen of this Samaritan religion. 
We would only have to find one who, like the mass of men, 
lived without God in the world, without God in all his 
thoughts, till he was forced into them by some special agency 
of his truth or his providence. In such a way a sin-hating 
God hath got into a disquieting vicinity to his conscience. 
The beams from his angry brow penetrate it like burning 
arrows. But the process never goes any further — never 
reaches that point where a God, transformed from wrath to 
grace, is received by a submissive, welcomed by a loving 
heart. The consequence is the production of a religion of 
conscience, in opposition to the religion of the heart ; a re- 
ligion of fear, in opposition to a religion of love. God is re- 
garded as just a troublesome and dangerous neighbor who 
cannot be got rid of — who must be pacified somehow, but as 
cheaply as possible — whose claims must be regarded, whose 
demands must be complied with, so far as is requisite to keep 
conscience quiet, that is, with the least possible expense to 
self. It is a religion, then, Avhich has to do only with the 
selfish part of the man. It deals with God as an enemy. It 
is founded solely on self-interest, and all its exhibitions are 
the result of self-interested calculations. Need we say, 



176 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

how different is all this from the religion that deals with 
God as " Abba, Father ;" which, by producing a wholesale 
lavishment of the affections on him, produces a no less un- 
bounded fulness of devotion to him ? 

4th. Such a religion has no power to eradicate sinful attach- 
ments, to remove sinful habits. The Samaritans had come 
to their new abodes with all their old attachments, to their 
idol deities. And though the fear of God — that is, the fear 
of his judgments — made them willing to admit him into 
the number of their deities, it could not make them renounce 
them for his sake. The Jewish priest, w^ho came to instruct 
them in the law of Israel, had doubtless taught them the 
first principle of that law ; '' Thou shalt have no other gods 
before me." And this is a hard saying. " These dear old 
images, that we have brought so far and venerated so long — 
require us to break them all to pieces ! It is asking too much. 
No, let us wait a while. Perhaps, after all, this God of the 
Hebrews is not so exclusive as the priest represents him. It 
may be, if we set up his worship' and perform due sacrifices 
to him, he will be satisfied even though we worship Nargal 
and Ashima and Tartak too. At all events there can be no 
harm in making the experiment ; of course if he sends the 
lions again we must give it up, and Nargal and Ashima must 
come down ; but not if we can help it." Such is the religion 
which consists in being afraid of God. Will you see, in point- 
ed contrast with this, a specimen of the religion which con- 
sists in loving him ? Turn then to 2 Chron. xxxiv. — and there 
you see Josiah, the son of idolatrous Amon, the grandson of 
no less idolatrous Manasseh, reclaimed by divine grace, and 
early commencing a life of piety. He sought and loved the 
God of David, and as the first effect of it, he brake down 
the altars of Baalim, that had been set up by his father and 
grandfather ; the images that were on high above them he 
cut down, and the groves, and the carved images and molten 
images he brake in pieces. And all this before the law of 
God and its prohibitions of idolatry had ever been seen by 
him — for it was not till some time after that the priest 
brought him a copy of the law, which had been found in some 
obscure corner of the temple where it had been forgotten 
during the long previous period of apostasy — and you see 
from the manner in which the young king receives it that 
it was to him a perfect novelty. Behold then the con- 
trast. The Samaritans professed to worship God, but they 



KEY. WM. B. WEED. 177 

must have their idols too. Josiah, whose early associations 
had been no less full of idolatry, yet pulls down his idols and 
worships God only. The former cling to Adrammelech and 
Anammelech in spite of the known law which forbade it. 
The latter pulls down the images of Baalim, wholly uncon- 
scious that any written law required it. Here then is the 
power of fear (you remember the sense in which we use it), 
and the power of love, as a religious principle, set in glaring 
opposition. The Samaritans, under the influence of the 
former principle, would comply with the divine demands so 
far as their personal safety required it ; but tampering with 
those demands and adhering to their old' sinful idolatrous 
habits to the utmost that they dared. You see Josiah, under 
the influence of the latter principle, anticipating the law of 
God to the very letter before he saw it ; and sacrificing the 
idolatrous habits which he had learned from father and 
grandfather — renouncing them forever by his own sponta- 
neous impulse. And so in general. Love casteth out fear. 
You cannot dread a being that you love. And love casteth 
out love : a stronger afiection supplants a weaker one. But 
fear does not cast out love. The heart never gives up its love 
for one object, or being, from the simple dread of another. If 
Joab had said to Absalom as he hurled the fatal dart at his 
bosom, " If you will hate the crown you have sought for, I will 
spare your life" — think you he could have complied with the 
condition ? Hence he who has no other emotion towards his 
Maker but that of fear, will not, cannot be expected to give 
up his sinful attachments — his earthly idols. They, the ob- 
jects of earthly afiection and pursuit, are what he loves 
supremely; and it is not in the power — even of God — to 
frighten him out of that attachment — unless it were by force. 
God may tell him ever so explicitly, " He that forsaketh not 
all that he hath, cannot be my disciple" — " He that loveth 
father or mother more than me is not worthy of me ;" but 
words — even the words of God — cannot displace his earth- 
born deities. Still does he persist in giving Jehovah no place 
in his heart which is inconsistent with an unabated attach- 
ment to them. True, if the Divine Being were to smite 
down one of his Dagons, he perhaps would not dare to 
set it up again ; but in the mean time he remains steadfast 
in his purpose to sacrifice to God his sinful inclinations and 
affections, only just so far as the dread of present personal 
consequences compels him. You see nothing in him of the 



178 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

cheerful, spontaneous spirit — anticipating the law of heaven 
in all its self-denying behests in the forward eagerness of its 
own devotion — which characterizes those whose idol thrones 
have all been subverted, whose sinful attachments have all 
been crushed by the mightier love of God. 

5th. Such a religion produces no amelioration, no salutary 
transformation of personal character. The Holy Ghost has 
given an illustration of this, in the subsequent conduct of the 
Samaritans, of the most decisive description. The Jews had 
returned from their captivity, and set about rebuilding their 
temple. Forthwith there comes a message from the Samar- 
itans proposing to co-operate with them. " We are your 
brethren — Jews like you. Suffer us to unite with you in the 
erection of a common temple, for the common worship of 
our common God." But there was an insuperable obstacle 
to this. The Hebrews, cured forever of idolatry by their re- 
cent captivity, naturally looked with special abhorrence on 
the barefaced idolatry. " We cannot own you. You have 
attempted what we consider the blasphemous union of theism 
and polytheism. In your worship, BaaHm and Ashtaroth 
share in the divine honors of Jehovah. You must divorce 
that union — you must break down the heathen image, and 
the idol altar, before we can recognize you as brethren of 
the family of Abraham." Now here was the decisive test 
of character. Charity might have pleaded — It may be, after 
all, that these Samaritans have cordially embraced the true 
religion, and their continued worship of idols is ascribable 
to ignorance, because they knew no better. But if so, the 
rebuke of the Jews will open their eyes ; they will acknowl- 
edge its justice ; they will break their images. But what 
was the fact ? The rebuke of the Hebrews, so far from con- 
vincing them, only exasperated them. It made them their 
mortal enemies ; — and the next we hear of them is, that 
amidst the most plausible professions of friendship for their 
Jewish neighbors, they were meanly endeavoring, by secret 
messages and slanderous imputations, to poison the mind of 
the king of Assyria against them, and doing all they could 
to hinder them from building their temple. It is plain that 
though professing two religions, they were none the better 
for either, — of course not for their idolatry, — and no more 
for their fear of God, — because it was nothing but fear. The 
love of God is a thoroughly revolutionary principle. It im- 
parts its own sacred character to the whole man. Whatever 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 179 

he hath of selfishness it liberalizes ; whatever he hath of 
narrow-mindedness it expands ; whatever he hath of little- 
ness it aggi^ndizes. But fear has no aggrandizing, or ex- 
panding, or ennobling power, any more where God is its 
object than in any other case. It is a debasing feeling ; it 
is the feeling of a slave. Hence, when you see one whose 
religion — to say the best of it — has evidently made no im- 
provement in him, — no more amiable, no more liberal- 
minded, no more free from the little, contracted, selfish, 
repulsive traits and qualities of human nature, — depend upon 
it the secret is, that not the love of God which changes all 
the heart, but the simple fear of him, which leaves it what it 
was before, — not the spirit of adoption, but the spirit of bond- 
age, — is the germinal principle of his religion. 

6th. Such a religion is never the parent of a consistent piety. 
You see this too exemplified in the case before us. While 
the Jews were prosperous under the favor of Alexander, the 
Samaritans were ready enough to claim kindred with them. 
When the Jews were in danger from the wrath of Antio- 
chus, they were just as ready to disown all relation to them, 
— to disown their religion, and disown their God, and style 
themselves heathen ; — which illustrates the general truth, 
that he who has been fricyhtened into relioion can much more 
easily be frightened out of it. The reason is, that fear is 
powerful with the human mind, not in proportion to the 
greatness of the dreaded object, but in proportion to its 
nearness and imminence. A present insect that bites and 
stings, is more formidable than the distant and unseen thun- 
derbolt. And a present human worm is more formidable 
than an absent God. This is the reason why those who have 
been driven into the practice or the profession of religion by 
their views and discoveries of an angry God, are so often, we 
may say so uniformly, driven out of it by the fear of man. 
The hostile influences which a present world arrays against 
them, are more potential to daunt, to frighten them from the 
path of duty, than all the influence of a God, whose terrors 
are confined to the world to come, to keep them steadfast. 
Hence the unstable, double-minded course which always 
characterizes them. Hence the reason why they are always 
found wanting in the hour of trial. Now the nature of love 
is just the opposite of this. Its steadfastness depends not at 
all upon the nearness or the remoteness of its object, but upon 
its own intensity. The beloved one, present or absent, is 



180 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

just as dear. Be it on the confines of earth or in eternity, it 
makes no difference with the heart's devotion ^ nor can any 
influence, however pressing, beguile or frighten it from the 
fideUty of its attachment. Hence the marvellous power of 
the love of God as a steadier of the soul amidst a thousand 
flatterers and a thousand tempters. The love of God is 
mightier than them all. It is almighty because its object is 
all-lovely. It made that Jewish matron and her seven sons 
suffer death sooner than abjure their God at the command- 
ing of the tyrant Antiochus, at the very moment when the 
Samaritans were purchasing his good-will by turning their 
temple of Jehovah into a shrine of Jupiter. Such are those 
who love God. Such are those who only fear him. The 
steadiness of the sun — the instability of water. Worlds 
cannot debauch the fidelity of the former ; whereas the only 
way to keep the latter in any thing like even an outwardly 
consistent course of piety, would be to have God always in 
reach of their senses in thunder and devouring fire. Let 
him keep out of their sight forty days, and they would get 
frightened at the perils of the wilderness, and be setting up 
their golden calf and setting out for Egypt. 

I. The Samaritan people are almost extinct — numbering at 
present but about one hundred and fifty souls. The Samari- 
tan religion, we fear, is far from being confined to such scanty 
numbers. We fear it is more entitled, in a numerical point 
of view, to be styled the religion of the world than any 
other — a religion which contemplates God not as a father, 
but only as a master — which obeys his demands just so 
far as it is obliged to, and contemns them just as far as it 
dares — which leaves the heart in full subjection to all its 
idols, and beneath the undiminished sway of its original pro- 
pensities, giving Jehovah only a subordinate place among 
the former, and the beauty of celestial virtue no place at all 
among the latter — which is a stranger to all the manifesta- 
tions of consistent piety, but swings like a pendulum be- 
tween the fear of God and the fear of man — no more than 
a slave to the one — no less than a slave to the other. This 
religion has its myriad representatives in every part of the 
world — it is the sum of paganism, the essence of Moham- 
medanism, the spirit of popery, the soul of formalism of every 
description, so far as it has any soul — it is the religion of all, 
whether Jew or heathen, Protestant or papist, who have 
never discovered more than the outward form and linea- 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 181 

ments of Jehovah — who have never been led by the crim- 
son clue of Calvary to find, to revel in the ocean of paternal 
love of which his heart is the mighty reservoir. All men 
have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Hence 
the first and most obvious view in which he is presented to 
the human soul is that of indignation and wrath. The misery 
is, that most men never get any further in their viev/ of 
him. They never get to the cross. They never see that in- 
dignation and wrath subsiding into the tomb of Jesus. They 
never see the glorious vision of redeeming grace ascending 
from it in the brightness of its blood-born creation there. 
Hence their religion, planted in the cold and barren soil of 
fear, growing up not in the light, but in the shade of God's 
countenance, is but a feeble, sickly thing — shaken by every 
wind — bending to every blast — yielding nothing but the ap- 
ples of Sodom and the clusters of Gomorrah. 

II. Is this thy religion, dear hearer ? Do its marks and to- 
kens tally with your ow^n ? Tell us not what you have done 
for him — what sacrifices you have made for him. There are 
several tribes of heathen who offer sacrifices to the devil to 
keep him from hurting them. Tell us not that you are re- 
strained from many things by the fear of God. Satan him- 
self dares not do his worst from fear of God. It is not enough 
that you have given God a place among your idols. He will 
not accept such a place. He spurns it. All or nothing, are 
his terms. Have you given him all — all the heart ? No ? 
Then Samaria must have you; Jerusalem — the Jerusalem 
that is above disowns you. Begin anew then. This Samari- 
tan religion — this convict's dress — you may, you will find it 
the worse for wear. But it will never improve you. You 
can never make a wedding garment of it. Don't attempt 
to repair it — fling it away. And then go sit at Jesus' feet. 
Go place yourself amidst the tricklings of his blood till you 
feel its renewing power. Go place yourself in the warm 
current of his dying breath till you feel it melting the ice — 
dissolving the rock — within you, and kindling in your soul 
the spirit of adoption. Then will you know, and feel, and 
exemplify the religion of the heart in opposition to the re- 
ligion of the lips — the religion of love in opposition to the 
religion of fear — the religion of heaven in opposition to the 
religion of hell. 

16 



182 SERMONS BY THE LATE 



''^ As for me^ I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall he 
satisfied^ when I awake^ with thy likeness^ — Ps. xvii. 15. 

There is a subject on which we have often been plied 
with questions, and — we confess it — on which we have here- 
tofore been exercised with no small degree of perplexity — a 
subject that receives but little direct elucidation from the 
teachings of divine truth, though it has an important bear- 
ing on the consistent harmony of its revelations, and is not 
without a practical interest for all, who, not content to live 
like the beasts that perish, circumscribed and engrossed by 
the present, are looking forward with an intelligent expecta- 
tion to the life that succeeds to death. On these accounts, 
and because we believe that it may be disembarrassed of the 
difficulties that attend it, by a due exercise of our reason 
and a due consideration of admitted facts, we propose it for 
present discussion. It may be stated thus : 

A dying Christian once expressed to us, as the most grate- 
ful prospect connected with her exit from this world, the an- 
ticipation of perfect holiness. We suppose this to be a com- 
mon feeling with the best of men, in view of death, and a 
special consideration that makes them welcome its approach 
— not because it is to emancipate them from external evils, 
but because it is to liberate them from that dark, internal 
evil which has been through life their soul's chief bitterness, 
and scourge, and sorrow — not because it will free them from 
sorrow, toil, and pain, but because it will free them from sin. 

But now the question is, why should they expect this? 
Seeing that the best men are the furthest from laying claim 
to perfect holiness in this life, and the first to plead guilty to 
the title of chief of sinners, why should they believe that 
death will whiten their souls to the spotlessness that is meet 
for paradise ? The perfectionist, you know, denies this, and 
tells you you must become perfectly holy in this world, or 
you never will be in the world to come. The papist denies 
it, and tells you you must have your sins burnt out of you 
after death by the fires of purgatory. And others, who are 
far from agreeing with either, like Abraham Tucker, in his 
profound and familiar work on the Light of Nature, hold to 
a certain intermediate state, midway between earth and 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 183 

heaven, where, by some unknown process, the work of sanc- 
tification, unfinished in this world, must be made complete, 
before the soul is admitted to full communion with the so- 
ciety of the blessed. But those who hold, as we do, that 
the souls of believers are at their death made perfect in holi- 
ness, how ar€ we to answer the question, by what means are 
they made so ? How does it come to pass, that leaving all 
they have of sin in the Jordan, they reach the coast of the 
eternal Canaan, " men made perfect ?" 

I. Looking first at the negative side of the subject, — 
1. We are by no means satisfied with that explanation of 
the change in question which resolves it into the simple and 
immediate power of God. We believe the idea is prevalent 
with many, that, even as a child, set to perform a given task, 
comforts himself with the reflection that, be he dilatory as 
he may, it will make no difference in the end, for if the work 
is not completed at the appointed time, his indulgent parent 
will lay hold and finish it himself, so do they imagine that, 
however in arrears their work of sanctification may be at 
death, God will then perfect that which is lacking in them, 
by an act of sheer omnipotence — a new regeneration, sup- 
plemental to the first, which will leave them without spot, or 
wrinkle, or any such thing, to assume their seats in heaven. 
Now, if you ask, cannot God do this ? I should not venture 
to say no. But the question what he will do in a given 
instance, is a different matter. To determine this, we must 
look to what he has done^ and to what he has said. But if 
he has and does put forth his omnipotence to complete the 
sanctification of the dying Christian, it is beyond our knowl- 
edge. None of them have ever come back from eternity to 
tell us so. And on this subject his written word says nothing. 
It no moi*e informs us that he will make the dying Christian 
perfectly holy by a special act of omnipotence, than that he 
will effect the same result, in the same way, in the living 
Christian, at any previous period of his existence. If, then, 
we believe he will do the former, we must believe it without 
any evidence at all, which is a moral impossibility. Indeed, 
the admission of such a belief would land us in conclusions 
to which no evancrelical Christian can subscribe. What saith 
the Universalist, ^vhen pressed with the argument that a sm- 
ner, dying in sin, is excluded from heaven, not only by the 
will of God, but by his own moral nature, which makes a 
holy heaven the last place in the universe for him ? Why, 



184: SERMONS BY THE LATE 

precisely as aforesaid, — that the Almighty changes him into 
a holy being in the act of dying, so that, though he draws 
his last breath a child of the devil, he makes a spotless child 
of God in the hfe to come. If you ask for proof, of com*se 
he has none ; but if we are authorized to believe without 
evidence that this is done by the Christian, why is he not 
just as much authorized to assert without evidence that the 
same is done by the sinner — was done by Judas ? Say you, 
the latter have no right to expect from God a boon, a favor 
so vast and incomputable, while the former have covenant 
claims on him ? But these claims reach no further than the 
specific promises of that covenant. The believer has a claim, 
that is, a reasonable ground to expect, that God will do for 
him all that he has ever promised to do. But he has never 
promised his almighty agency to perfect his saintship in the 
hour of death. He has indeed promised to take him to heav- 
en, and seeing that in order to this he must be perfectly holy, 
we grant that if it could be demonstrated that his sanctifica- 
tion could be completed in no other way than by such a 
direct almighty agency, we might fairly infer that it would 
be employed for this purpose. But as nobody can prove 
such a negative, so neither can anybody prove that God 
turns the imperfect Christian into a perfect saint, by an im- 
mediate act of his power, w^hen dying. 

2. There is nothing in the physical change produced by 
death, that is calculated to give birth to the moral change 
in question. Here again Ave might observe that to admit 
the contrary w^ould land us in Universahsm. For if there be 
a natural constitution by which sin dies with the body, the 
obvious inference is, that this phenomenon must be a univer- 
sal one — that death is a wholesale regenerator or sanctifier — 
that, in virtue of this natural constitution, every human being 
becomes perfectly holy as soon as he is dead. But the truth 
is, a physical cause has no such natural tendency to produce, 
to originate, a moral eifect, however it may assist or modify 
it. If sin were something that belonged exclusively to the 
body, it might indeed be expected that the soul would be 
as perfectly free from it, as perfectly unconscious of it, subse- 
quent to dissolution, as it is of the blind eye, or the gan- 
grened foot, or the diseased lungs, which it leaves with the 
body in the grave. But sin is essentially a principle or 
aifection of the soul itself— enmity to God, a disposition or 
propensity to run counter to his revelation of truth and duty. 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 185 

Now, is there any reason for supposing that death, a phe- 
nomenon confined to the body, has a natural tendency to 
exterminate the evil principles and affections of the soul ? 
Plainly there is just as much reason for believing that it has 
a natural tendency to exterminate the good principles and 
affections of the soul, that is, that the imperfect Christian is 
just as likely to lose what good he has, and become a perfect 
sinner, as to lose what evil he has in his composition, and 
become a perfect saint, as the natural result of dying. 

II. But, coming now to contemplate the subject positively, 
to endeavor to show how "the souls of believers at their 
death are made perfect in holiness," we shall perhaps be 
accused of self-contradiction when we assert that — 

1. This result is in no small degree to be ascribed to their 
separation from the body. But observe a distinction here. 
To say that a given effect is naturally produced by a certain 
cause, is one thing ; to say that a given cause may, in pecu- 
liar circumstances, assist or further a certain result, is quite 
another thing. The former can never be true where the 
cause is of a physical and the effect of a moral nature, or the 
contrary. But physical causes may, under certain circum- 
stances, assist or further a moral effect ; and the contrary is 
equally true. There was no reason in the nature of the case 
why the sight of that wedge of gold and that goodly Baby- 
lonish garment should create for the first time a covetous 
spirit in Achan, and impel him to steal them in defiance of 
the command of God ; but it is not strange that, with the 
spirit of covetousness already existing in him, it should have 
been excited to that degree, by the sight of those tempting 
objects, as to determine him to possess them in defiance of 
the divine command. So, though there is no reason in the 
nature of the case why men should cease to sin when they 
cease to live corporeally, yet in the case of a child of God, 
in whom, whatever there may be of the opposite character, 
the ruling principle of his soul is holiness, we can see an ob- 
vious mode in which it may be assisted to perfection, as a 
consequence of its separation from the body. For, — 

(1.) The origin of sin, or to speak with more precision, 
the inlets, the channels by which it finds its way into the 
soul, are what are called the bodily or fleshly appetites. 
The first incentive to the first sin that was ever committed 
in this world, was the sight of a certain fruit, which was seen 
to be good to eat. The sight of the eye, the hearing of the 

16* 



186 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

ear, the sense of touch and the sense of taste, the weak 
nerves, the hot blood, the excitable animal temperament, are 
so many panders to those lusts of the flesh, those carnal appe- 
tites and passions, which infect the soul with the madness of 
sin, even as a draught of alcohol received into the mouth 
sends up its fumes to the brain and oversets the reason. 

(2.) Now here observe a distinction between the two great 
classes into which the world is morally divided. In an un- 
regenerate man, the love of sin reigns supreme and unri- 
valled — the dominant, the all-controlling afiection of his soul. 
But the controlling affection of a child of God, is the love of 
God — holiness. He does not love sin, but hates it. It may 
overtake him, but he never runs after it. The law of sin 
may bring him into captivity, but it is a compulsive bondage. 
In a word he may do wrong, but it is through surprise, mo- 
mentary impulse, sudden temptation — never from cool, de- 
liberate preference. His cool deliberate preference is always 
to do right according to God's meaning of the word, — and 
in the worst act with which he is ever chargeable, he can con- 
fidently and honestly say — It is no more I that do it — not 
the higher, heaven-renewed nature which attaches me to 
God and holiness — but sin, the body of sin, the lower carnal 
nature that dwelleth in me. 

(3.) Now let the stroke of death fall on each of these, and 
what may be expected to follow ? He that was sinful before, 
will be sinful still. His soul will still retain its ruling affec- 
tion — the love of sin — notwithstanding its divorcement from 
the body, and from the sinful incitements of which the 
bodily senses, organs, members, are the conducting avenues. 
But he that was holy will now find one chief barrier against 
his perfection in virtue swept away. He will still retain his 
ruling affection — the love of holiness — at the same time that 
he will be freed from those sinful incitements of which the bodi- 
ly senses, organs, members are the conducting avenues. Do 
you perceive the distinction ? Shall we try to make it 
plainer? That combustible building — thoroughly ignited, 
will burn just the same, though the torch that first kindled 
it be removed away. But that mass of iron will presently 
cool, if the fire that heated it be removed. That sinner is 
all on fire with the love of sin. That deadly conflagration— 
however it may have originated in his corporeal senses and 
appetites, has whelmed every part of him — soul, and spirit, 
and all. And therefore when death dislodges him from the 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 187 

body, he will be still a sinner — no more needing the inflam- 
matory excitements which come in through the senses and 
appetites of the body, to keep him so, than Vesuvius needs 
fuel to keep it burning. Satan, who never had ^ybody at 
all, is the greatest of sinners. But to a Christian — to whom 
as a partaker of the divine nature, sin is repugnant, what 
else can the separation from the body, and from the sinful 
excitements which come in through its eyes, and ears, and 
nerves, and blood, and various appetites — what else can it 
be but one grand means of deliverance from sin ? Will it 
not be like removing the burning fagots from around the 
victim, who shrinks from them with all his heart ? Will not 
the removal of these stimulants to the evil that he hates — 
tend directly to the perfection of the holiness that he 
loves ? 

2. We may understand how it comes to pass that he who 
is dead in Christ should be freed from sin — by considering 
that he is free from all external temptations. 

(1.) The world is the Christian's great tempter. Since 
his faith has overcome it, and dethroned it, it is no longer 
what it once was, his all, his universe, his God — but it i? 
ever trying, and often but too successfully, to regain its lost 
dominion. Its various goods, its endearing fellowships and 
relations, tempt him to exchange the grateful spirit that 
prizes them worthily and acknowledges them thankfully, for 
the spirit of concupiscence that magnifies them inordinately 
and loves them idolatrously. Its various cares and duties 
tempt him to neglect the obligations which he owes to God 
and his own soul, and with whose faithful performance his 
progress in virtue is identified. Its riches are a temptation ; 
for the serpent pride lurks beneath them, and in grasping 
them, he may be stung by it. Its poverty is a temptation ; 
for envy, discontent, ingratitude for what is given, dissatis- 
fied murmurings at what is withheld, each a specimen of 
soul-poison, may insidiously infuse themselves among the 
ingredients of its bitter cup. In a word, the world is a dark 
body which never necessarily, but always possibly may 
eclipse the saint from God — an enchanted ground where 
dreamy poppies may steep him in spiritual slumbers — a 
malignant star, — to adopt the exploded phraseology of pop- 
ular superstition, — whose baleful influences may inflict upon 
him the curse of spiritual leanness and declension. But of it 
and of all its unsanctifying influences — its goods and its rela- 



183 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

tionships, its duties and its cares, its riches and its poverty, 
with all the temptations incident to them, death gives him a 
complete and perpetual riddance. Is it not like removing 
the fastenmgs, that the vessel may go forth on her free and 
unobstructed path of waters ? Is it not like untying the cord 
that bound its foot, that the bird may mount to heaven? 
In plain words, is it not removing the chiefest clog which 
kept the soul from ascending into its coveted and congenial 
sphere of perfect holiness ? And here again note the dis- 
tinction. To the sinner, the world is every thing. Its cir- 
cumference includes the entire inventory and sum total of 
all his happiness, and hopes, and joys. To part with it, then, 
at death, will have no sanctifying tendency — it will simply 
be the utter shipwreck of all his happiness. It will not tend 
to make him better. It will simply help to make him miser- 
able. The difference between him and the dying saint lies 
here. To the latter, parting from the world is a deliverance, 
to the former a privation. To the one it is a release from a 
great source of temptation ; to the other the loss of all 
things. To the one it is the removal of a great barrier be- 
tween his soul and God ; leaving her to embrace him as her 
all in all, in the bliss of perfect love ; to the other it is the 
removal of his all in all, leaving him to the bitterness of per- 
fect wretchedness. 

(2.) Example is a potent source of temptation to a Chris- 
tian. Be he young, or old, or middle-aged, side by side in 
the journey of life, he finds those, linked to himself perhaps 
by the strongest ties of friendship or consanguinity, whose 
ends, whose views, whose themes of conversation are all of 
the earth, earthy, and whose god is mammon — the very at- 
mosphere of whose intercourse is to his spiritual graces like 
the frost of May to the tender blossoms. And then there is 
the example of false brethren, daily crucifying the Son of 
God afresh, and to the original superscription that was put 
on his cross in Hebrew and Greek and Latin — " This is the 
King of the Jews," — adding those words in the plain English 
of their habitual conduct — My king is pleasure, money, poli- 
tics. Alas! how hard for the child of grace to keep his in- 
tegrity, when he sees so many, perhaps older than himself on 
the records of the church, perhaps living under the same 
roof, apparently doing their very best to convince every- 
body that though they call themselves Christians, they do 
not mean any thing by it, and that the sacred vows of a 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 189 

Christian profession are good for nothing except to be broken. 
Is it nothing towards the perfection of the child of grace 
that from these temptations of men and devils — from all that 
sinners have done to beguile him — from all that dead Chris- 
tians have done to swerve him — from all that Satan has done 
to drive him from the King's highway — death gives him a 
complete release? That the billows of these temptations 
have their bounds in the limits of time, and from the hour 
his spirit mingles with eternity cannot touch her further ? 

III. Death introduces the soul of the believer to the full 
vision of God — and this is another, and the crowning means 
by which he is then made perfect in holiness, and fit to pass 
into glory. And here we need not argue theoretically. We 
have only to follow the light of Christian experience. For 
Avhat child of God need be told how sanctifying is one hour's 
communion with the Father of Spirits, w^hen the human 
spirit, all alone with him, and no intruder by, feels the warm 
contact of the God she loves, and feasts upon his glories ? 
Oh, could that hour be perpetuated ! Could I remain thus for 
a life-long duration, on the mount of vision, with him, the 
Glorious and the Blessed, filling all my field of view, the 
body of sin would receive its death-blow — would expire to 
revive no more, and leave me all transfigured into the like- 
ness of Him. Then, too, w^ho has not observed how sancti- 
fying are God's special communications to the saint when on 
the eve of his departure. For then, as the dividing partition 
of mortality waxes thinner, the blessed Father often manifests 
himself to the dying child more clearly, more visibly, than 
at any period of previous life. " The Sun of righteousness 
has been gradually drawing nearer and nearer, appearing 
brighter and brighter as he approaches, and now he fills the 
w^hole hemisphere, pouring forth a flood of glory, in which 
I seem to float like an insect in the beams of the sun, ex- 
ulting, yet almost trembling while I gaze on this excessive 
brightness, and w^ondering with unutterable wonder why 
God should deign thus to shine on a sinful worm." This is 
the record of the actual experience of a dying saint. Is it 
strange that he should rapidly angelize under such an expe- 
rience ? — that those conversant with him from day to day 
should almost see the saint transforming into a seraph, from 
these peculiar manifestations of his God ? Yet all this time 
he sees him but through a glass, darkly — sees him but through 
the medium of faith, obstructed by the clogs and fetters of 



190 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

mortality. But now the hour is come that those clogs and 
fetters are to be all removed, and mortality be swallowed up 
of life, and the very brightness of God be poured around 
him. Faith lays down her telescope and resigns her voca- 
tion — the soul is Avrapped up in the literal splendors of the 
God she loves, and now feels, for the first time, something 
like the full impression how much — how infinitely — such a 
God can love her. How much of enmity to God — how much 
of sin will survive that meeting ? Will not its last remains 
and traces vanish from his heart, like vapor in the sunbeams, 
before that vision of Eternal Love and Holiness ? The dvins^ 
sinner is cast into the furnace of divine wrath. What else 
is needed to confirm his hatred of the Almighty power and 
care ? The dying Christian is cast into the burning, glow- 
ing furnace of divine love. What else is needed to confirm 
him in peifect love — which is perfect holiness ? 

We have room but for a brief application — but like the 
body of the discourse, it must be both negative and positive. 

I. No impenitent soul has a right to claim from the afore- 
said remarks the slightest encouragement as to his future 
prospects. I take that tree replete with sapful life, and ex- 
plain the various improvements in its growth and in the 
quality of its fruit, which may be expected to result if it 
were dug up and transplanted into a more congenial soil and 
climate. But who would think of inferring that one word 
of that exposition applied to that dead log which was cut 
down and lopped of all its branches years ago ? Who would 
think of inferring that it could be any way improved by a 
similar change of location ? Even so God's spiritual olive-trees, 
pervaded with the life-giving sap of grace, we have seen good 
reason for believing that their transplantation at death, will 
have a marvellous tendency to improve and perfect them. 
But no such result is to be looked for where there is no 
spirituality — no grace. We have seen that death has no 
natural — no necessary tendency to perfect the soul in holi- 
ness. Such is the fact only where there is holiness to be per- 
fected — not where there is a total destitution of it. No, 
dear hearer, if sin reign supreme in you till you die, it will 
reign supreme in you forever. If the love of the world be 
your master-passion till death, it will be your master-passion 
then, and your master-torturer forever after — and the vision 
of God which you, as well as the saint, must meet in the 
hour of dissolution, will burn into your soul, indelibly, the 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 191 

hatred that you bear him now, and you ^vill invoke the rocks 
and mountains to hide you from the loathed and abhorrent 
sight. In a word, the soul's great agent of sanctification is 
the Holy Ghost — not death. He only completes at death, 
and by the means we have specified, the work he had begun 
before. He must commence that work in you now, if be is 
to perfect it then. "Ye must be born again," — else the 
great change will prove not an upward but a downward one. 
You will find yourself not the better but the worse for it — 
worse in character, because deprived of the restraints of 
Providence and grace — and worse in situation because shut 
out from mercy. 

II. It is the farthest from our intention, and, as we think, 
the farthest from the tendency of the aforesaid remarks, to 
blunt the force of the apostolic exhortation to work out your 
salvation with fear and trembling. Perfectionists are fond 
of sneering at those who deny their unscriptural dogma, as 
if they held that, no matter how defective in virtue a Chris- 
tian man may be, death will give him the proper finishing 
for paradise. "We hold no such doctrine. On the other 
hand, we say the man who does, the man who lays that flat- 
tering unction to his soul, talks too much like a sinner to be 
a Christian. To hate sin, to desire and strive to be rid of it 
and to be holy, this is to be a Christian. Do you care little 
how defective your holiness may be, from the presumption 
that death will make up what is wanting ? Where then is 
your love of holiness ? — and where then your hatred of sin ? 
— and where then your title to be called a child of God ? 

III. No ; but we Avrite this sermon for the benefit of one 
class of persons, and of them alone. To them, and to no 
others, we expect it may prove a source of profit and com- 
fortable reflection — the faithful sons and daughters of the 
Lord Almighty, who, true to their nature, and true to his 
behests, are aiming, hoping, striving, fighting themselves, 
the world, and the devil, to obtain the victory over sin ; but 
are often compelled to ask, Avith sad misgivings, Shall that 
victory ever be complete ? — shall I ever be holy enough for 
heaven ? We think the aforesaid considerations may tend 
to remove these misgivings — to show you that not the hu- 
miliation of defeat, but the joy of triumph, is before thee. 
Fight on till death shall bring thee to thy God, and he will 
bring thee there without spot or wrinkle. Freed from the 
lusts of the fleshj freed from the world's, from sinners', and 



192 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

from counterfeit saints' temptations, rapt in the beatific vision 
of God, and reposing in the glowing embraces of his love, 
thy love, thy holiness shall shine forth in universal com- 
pleteness ; and, victor of sin, and crowned with perfect vir- 
tue, thou shalt be presented faultless before the presence of 
his glory with exceeding joy. 



^ » » 



*' Therefore^ my beloved brethren^ be ye steadfast^ immovable^ 
always abounding in the work of the Lordr — 1 Cor. xv. 58. 

The quiet of nature is liable to be disturbed by occasional 
excitements. The tranquil atmosphere may be thrown into 
wild commotion by driving storms and the discharge of 
electrical batteries on the grandest scale. The peaceful 
landscape may be devastated, and the sleeping ocean awoke 
to fury by the whirlwind's wing, and even the steadfast 
globe may rock to and fro beneath the earthquake's strug- 
gles. So, too, the calm of domestic life may be ruffled by 
the invasion of disease and death ; the even tenor of society 
be broken in upon by new and startling events, or the agita- 
tion of new projects of public enterprise and social reform; 
and the political elements be roused from their quiet by the 
periodical strifes of old parties, or the desperate efforts of 
new ones to gain the mastery. Now, it is by such analogies 
as these that some have attempted to defend and justify 
w^hat are called revivals of religion — seasons when churches 
and communities, awaking from 1;he spiritual slumber per- 
haps of years, manifest, for a time, a high degree of absorb- 
ing and excited feeling in relation to the matters which per- 
tain to the welfare of the soul, and the progress of the 
kingdom of heaven. Nature, — such is the argument, — in 
all her departments, earth, air, and ocean, — human life in all 
its ordinary aspects, domestic, social, political, — have their 
occasional agitations and convulsions, interrupting and vary- 
ing the otherwise regular and habitual order of things ; and 
why should not the same thing be true in the religious 
world ? Why should it not have its occasional excitements 
and agitations too ? You perceive that all this proceeds on 
the admission that a religious revival occurs, and may be 



KEY. WM. B. WEED. 193 

expected to recur, only at stated intervals — that we are no 
more to look for a perpetual revival than for a perpetual 
earthquake or a perpetual epidemic. And this we believe to 
be the prevailing opinion, even among those who would need 
no such argument, no such analogy as the foregoing, to sat- 
isfy them of the fitness and the desirableness of such seasons. 
Now, so far from making any such admission, so far from 
likening a state of general interest in the things of religion 
to an occasional tempest, earthquake, family crisis of disease 
and death, or any other rarely occurring event, it is our de- 
liberate belief that, according to the scriptural view of the 
matter, such seasons correspond to that state of the natural 
creation when the earth is smiling in bright tranquillity in 
the embrace of heaven — to that state of the domestic house- 
hold where health, and peace, and happiness, are the order 
of the day — to that state of the body public when every 
plant of political discord is uprooted, and every blast of po- 
litical commotion laid, and the whole harmonious people are 
pursuing their even tenor in the path of public prosperity. 
In other words, we belie^'e that a state of religious excite- 
ment, — of course, not including every thing that bears that 
name, — a state oi genuine religious excitement, produced and 
maintained by the Spirit of God, is as truly the natural, nor- 
mal condition of the Church, as health is of the human body, 
or progressive growth and development, of every thing that 
liveth ; that a church, in order to fulfil the terms of gospel 
requisition, ought to be in the glorious agitation of a perpet- 
ual revival. 

I. What, then, is the natural state of any existing thing, 
animate or inanimate ; physical, moral, or spiritual ? Is it 
not that in which it conforms to the laws, fulfils the condi- 
tions, physical or moral, which God, the Maker and the 
Sovereign, originally impressed on it? Take a familiar 
example. When God made water, he so constituted it that 
its particles should move easily among themselves, and yield 
to the slightest pressure. That then, is its natural state — a 
fiuid state. When, from external causes, from the with- 
drawment of heat or the application of an intense degree of 
it, it is congealed or evaporated, it is no longer in the natural 
condition of water, and hence is no longer called so, but re- 
ceives a new name — ice in the one case, steam in the other. 
The natural state of vegetable and animal life, till it has at- 
tained its full perfectioEkj is steady growth. Hence, when 

17 



194 SEKMONS BY THE LATE 

the young sapling, or the young child, stops short in its 
growth, shrinks, dwindles, its leaves or its countenance losing 
its healthful color, its appropriate nourishment rejected or 
no longer producing any nourishing effect, you say the child, 
or the sapling, is in an unnatural, that is, diseased state — 
some deleterious cause or influence has interposed to stunt 
its principle of vitality, and check the growth and develop- 
ment which is the original law of its being. Even so the 
Lord of all hath placed the soul of man under certain moral 
laws, digested into ten commandments by himself at Sinai, 
still further condensed by the equally divine authority of his 
Son into two : Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all 
thy heart, and everybody else as thyself. Hence, the nat- 
ural, the appropriate state of man and of all moral beings — 
that which is most conducive to their spiritual health and 
happiness — is a state of implicit obedience to those laws 
to which God has subjected their moral frame. This world, 
speaking in general terms, is a moral hospital, a lazar-house 
full of patients in a diseased and uanatural state, as the neces- 
sary effect of their disobedience to the revealed will of 
Heaven. Sin — which, " like a venomous disease, infects their 
vital blood," incapacitates them for the appropriate happiness 
of a spiritual existence, and makes their souls the victims of 
present and prospective misery — is simply the transgression 
of the moral laws which Jehovah placed them under, what 
time his creative fiat called them into being. 

Now, the intended purpose of the gospel is to restore all 
this — to take the patients of sin's hospital and restore them 
to the perfect health which consists in a perfect obedience to 
the revealed will of God ; or, rather, to take the dead corpses 
from sin's potter's field and restore them to spiritual life by 
imparting to them, through the agency of the Holy Ghost, 
the vital princi^Dle of a holy obedience, which, though at first 
comparatively as feeble as the vital spark of a new-born in- 
fant — which, at first no bigger than a grain of mustard-seed, 
is to grow and expand till it takes possession of all the soul, 
eradicates the native spirit of rebellion, and makes the man 
a faultlessly obedient subject of Jehovah, that is, completely 
conformable to the moral laws of his being, and therefore 
complete in the full perfection of his nature, holiness ; and in 
the highest aspiration of his nature, happiness. 

Behold, then, the true idea of a Christian church. It is 
not a collection of the merely sick or dead, nor of perfectly 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 195 

sound ones. It is a company of convalescents, in whom the 
plague of sin is stayed, and the process of recovery is begun — 
in whom the blood-bought grace and Spirit of Christ has 
commenced the work of restoration, by imparting to them 
the seeds and elements of a new spiritual existence. They 
are no longer, then, sinners ; nor are they perfect saints, but 
inceptive, infantile ones. But God, for Christ's sake, has 
such respect for their embryo saintship, that he enters into 
covenant with them to carry on, through their agency and 
co-operation, the work of holiness that has been begun in 
them, till the new man in Christ Jesus becomes a perfect 
man in Christ Jesus. Such, then, in brief, is the Church ; 
and if the natural state or condition of any existing thing is 
that in which it is conformed to and fulfils the divinely-ap- 
pointed laws of its being, then, — 

II. Can there be any doubt as to what is the natural state 
and appropriate condition of a church ? Is it not a state of 
growth and progressive development — a state in which its 
members, mutually assisting each other, and all inspired and 
assisted from on high, are zealously cultivating in their souls, 
maturing, practising, and thereby perfecting, the various 
principles of a holy character? We should conclude thus a 
priori^ though without a particle of light on the subject from 
revelation. For we have seen that steady growth, till it 
reaches its full perfection, is the law of every living thing. 

Xow, is not the Church a living thing? It is styled 
" God's husbandry." Is God the cultivator of dead plants 
and vegetables? It is styled "Christ's body." Is Christ 
the head of a corpse? Yea, when styled a temple, it is no 
mere mass of stone and mortar which is referred to as its 
counterpart. It is a '' living temple" — a temple that grows : 
" In whom all the building, fitly framed together, groweth 
unto a holy temple in the Lord." But this is to anticipate. 
From its very nature, then, as a thing of life, we should con- 
clude that it was essentially a thing of progress ; w^e should 
conclude that the stationary and the lifeless w^as unnatural to 
it, and that going from strength to strength, going on unto 
perfection, was the appropriate law of its being. 

But the word of God leaved no doubt upon the subject. 
" First the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear." 
Such is the language under which the appropriate conditions 
of a religious life are expressed. "Leaven," leavening by 
degrees the w^hole lump; "a seed," growing into a great 



196 SERMONS Br THE LATE 

tree, whose branches give lodgings to the fowls of the air — 
such is the definition which the Saviour gives of the kingdom 
of heaven — the spiritual frame of every one who is fit to be a 
member of his earthly or his heavenly Church. And, in pre- 
cise accordance with this, they are bidden, "As new-born 
babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow 
thereby ;" " Be not carried about by every wind of doctrine ; 
but, speaking the truth in love, grow up into him in all 
things which is the head, even Christ." And so says Peter : 
" Beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the 
wicked, fall from your own steadfastness ; but grow in grace 
and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." 
So, then, while the members of a church are waxing in the 
features of a gracious character, they are fulfiUing the law of 
Christ ; that is, they are in the natural and appropriate con- 
dition of Christians. They are in an unnatural state — they 
are doing violence to that law, when they are at a stand-still, 
or declining in grace. 

III. Now, w^hat is a revival of religion ? What are the 
usual phenomena attending it? Why, that Christians are 
awake to the business and the duties of their Christian pro- 
fession. Their religious aflfections are in an active state. 
They are earnestly striving for the cultivation of personal 
holiness, and laboring and wrestling for the salvation of sin- 
ners. In plain words, they are simply performing the part 
of living, active Christians — doing, with some degree of ear- 
Bestness, precisely what is indispensable to the development 
of their Christian principle and the perfecting of their Chris- 
tian character. And what is this but merely doing what 
Christ and his apostles bid them — fulfilling the gospel law of 
their Christian being ? Do you think that a church, aroused 
to the boiling zeal and the fervent earnestness of the most 
signal revival season that ever was witnessed in all Christen- 
dom, could pretend to be in a more active, more growing 
state than the precepts we have just quoted require of her? 
And have we any reason to believe that these precepts are 
only intermittent and occasional in their application — that 
they apply only to particular seasons ? Is there not as much 
reason to consider them always binding on every Christian, 
at every moment of his existence, as any of the commands 
of the decalogue? If this be so, then we appeal to you that 
it is an egregious misnomer to style revivals the earthquakes 
and tempests of the Church — that is, excej)tional events, 



KEY. WM. B. WEED. 197 

which interrupt the uniformity of her natural and normal 
condition. They are her natural and normal condition. 
They are seasons when the Church is, in some measure, 
what she ought to be always — when, for a time, she gives a 
specimen of what she ought to be in all time. On the other 
hand, the languor, and the coldness, and the inaction which 
usually fill up the intervals between these seasons, are an 
unnatural and diseased state of the Church, bespeaking a 
practical disregard and disobedience of the law of spiritual 
growth and activity which her Saviour Master has imposed 
upon her. 

IV. For the gospel makes no provision for seasons of 
inactivity in the Church. Work to-day and rest to-morrow 
— awake to-day and asleep to-morrow — revival to-day and 
declension to-morrow — this, I am aware, is but too generally 
the complexion of our ecclesiastical communities; but the 
gospel knows nothing of such alternations and intermittences, 
and gives no countenance to them. And this from the very 
nature of the case. There are, indeed, some kinds of organic 
life which have their seasons of active growth and dormancy. 
This is true of vegetables, plants, trees, w'hich divest them- 
selves of all signs of life during the winter season. And the 
same is true of certain animals. But no such alternations 
appropriately belong to that inner man which constitutes 
the peculiar distinction of the members of the body of Christ. 
For that inner man is simply the aggregate of the essential 
principles of the gospel — faith, and love, and brotherly kind- 
ness, and charity, and the rest. Now, who ever heard of 
intermittent principle, in any legitimate sense of that word ? 
The man who is strictly honest for three weeks in the year, 
but shows no signs of it for all the rest of the time, — would 
you call him a man of honest principle ? He who, once, or 
twice, or half a dozen times, in the course of his existence, 
should manifest a great degree of interest in the needy and 
destitute among his fellow-men, feeding the hungry and 
clothing the naked, yet all the rest of his life leaving the 
needy, and the hungry, and the naked, to take care of them- 
selves, and shutting up the bow^els of his compassion from 
them, — could he expect to be regarded as a man of charitable 
principle? For what is principle? Take the dictionary 
definition of it — " a settled law, or rule of action, in human 
beings." Of course, uniformity of operation is an essential 
characteristic of it. Thus in the natural world we do not 

17* 



198 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

call the wind a principle, which blows in one direction in the 
morning, and in another direction, or not at all, at night ; 
but we call gravitation a principle, because it acts uniformly 
and always alike on every specimen of matter. Now this is 
precisely the difference between the man of mere impulse 
and the man of principle. The former is governed by exter- 
nal influences, and therefore may be one thing to-day and its 
antipodes to-morrow ; but the governing power of the latter 
is within himself, in the shape of certain rules of action which, 
from a deliberate conviction of their moral fitness, he hath 
prescribed to himself, and therefore always acts consistently 
with them. Thus, the man of benevolent principle is always 
benevolent ; the man of honest principle will never cheat ; 
the man of veracious principle will never lie. May it not be 
expected, then, that the man of Christian principles will 
always act consistently with them ; that, if the love of God is 
a principle of his heart, he will always love him, and always 
be actuated by a zeal for his glory ; that, if good-will to men 
is a principle of his heart, he will always cherish it, and al- 
ways manifest it by doing good to all men, especially to their 
souls, as he has opportunity ; and, in a word, if faith in Christ 
be a living principle of his soul, he will always be influenced 
by it, and in consequence live a life of habitual, holy, self- 
denying obedience to his Lord and Master, through his 
grace and strength, of which that faith is the procuring 
medium ? 

And this is neither more nor less than what his Lord and 
Master requires; for see in the text, where his inspired 
mouthpiece, having demonstrated the certainty of that glori- 
ous motive to Christian fidelity and perseverance, the resur- 
rection of the just, adds, by way of application, "Be ye 
steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the 
Lord." In these few words he exhibits the complete pattern 
of character and conduct that was required of them — what 
they were to do, and what they were to be, as Christians, 
steadfast and immovable in their Christian principles, their 
faith and love, and, as a consequence, always abounding in 
the work of the Lord. By "the work of the Lord" is obvi- 
ously meant the whole task which the Lord hath imposed on 
them as Christians — all that his gospel requires them to do — 
the whole circle of their Christian duties to themselves, to 
the Church, to God, and to man. In these they are to be 
always engaged ; and this not only, but always aboundingly, 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 199 

overflowingly engaged; for such is the Uteral meaning of 
the word. 

Such, then, is the sum of the text — steadfast and immova- 
ble as a rock in the midst of the tide, as regards their Chris- 
tian principle; and always abounding, like that tide when at 
the highest, as regards their Christian practice. Now, take 
the most glorious revival season you have ever witnessed, 
and we pray you, did its manifestations ever go beyond this ? 
Were Christians more than immovable in their faith, and 
love, and holy zeal, and more than aboL'nding in the work of 
the Lord ? Yet this is what they are required to be and to 
do always. Are we not right, then, in saying that revival 
seasons are only specimens of those exhibitions of character, 
and that salutary influence on the world, which the Church 
ought to manifest and exhibit at all seasons ; that the most 
illustrious displays of Christian principle and Christian fidelity 
which are witnessed at such times arc no more, to say the 
least, than what the Master requireth of his Church at all 
times ? 

V. We proceed to consider one or two objections to the 
view now presented. And — 

1. A perpetual revival, in the temporal circumstances in 
which we are placed at present, is impossible. It Avould 
leave us almost no time for any thing else. At present when 
such seasons take place, we are expected to attend meetings 
almost every night in the week, besides engaging in special 
efforts for the salvation of the impenitent — visiting from 
house to house, &c., to the no small neglect of our ordinary 
avocations. Now if such a state of things should continue 
from year to year without interruption, our worldly business 
must not only suffer necessary damage from this constant 
absorption of our minds and efforts in spiritual affairs, but 
these unremitted efforts would be unendurable ; in no long 
space of time they would break down our physical system. 

Now we might reply by asking, whether you are prepared 
to put yourselves in the attitude of him who hid his talent 
in a napkin, and call Christ a hard master who requires 
more than you can do ? If — as you doubt not — if your tem- 
poral circumstances are of his appointing — if your physical 
system is of his ordaining — if the command of the text is of 
his revealing — then the latter cannot be inconsistent with 
the former — that is, to be always abounding in the work of 
the Lord — to maintain a constant revival frame, and spirit, 



200 SEKMONS BY THE LATE 

and activity, cannot be inconsistent with the well-being of 
your physical frame, and with a due attention to your tem- 
poral concerns, unless you believe your merciful master capa- 
ble of an unreasonable severity in his requisitions. But be- 
sides one chief reason why revival seasons impose such a tax 
upon our efforts is, because they recur so seldom. It is only 
in a certain season, of a few weeks in length, that our whole 
supply of breadstuifs for the whole year is to be gathered in, 
which makes that season one of unusual labor, and hurry, 
and absorbing excitement. But would there be such hurry, 
and excitement, and wear and tear of body if the harvest 
period ran through the whole year — if grain could be gath- 
ered from the field at any time ? Even so, as long as it is 
understood that a revival of religion is to be looked for to 
occur but once in several years, we feel obliged to bestir our- 
selves to unusual effort, such as perhaps could not be con- 
tinued permanently, in order to make the most of the pre- 
cious harvest while it lasts — in view of the fruitless period 
which preceded it, and the fruitless period that is expected 
to follow it. But the case would be otherwise, — the violent 
and spasmodic effort to take advantage of a glorious crisis, 
which might not occur again in our lifetime, would be pre- 
cluded, — if those precious seasons of earnest activity and 
prayerfulness in the Church and accessions from the world 
were continued, without interruption, from one year's end to 
another. Such appears to have been the fact with the primi- 
tive Church at Jerusalem ; yet we do not find any of these 
Christians complaining of the degree of exertion it imposed 
on them. 

2. But again it is said, that such a thing as a perpetual 
revival has never been known in any part of the Church, and 
it is too late in the day to expect it now ; — to which we reply, 
that if precedent is to determine the question, we might re- 
fer you to the fact that the Church universal, for half of the 
entire period of her existence, — from the beginning of the 
sixth to the end of the fifteenth century, — was in an almost 
uninterruptedly wintry state, with scarcely a single spring 
day — was a ghastly skeleton of spiritual death, with scarcely 
a single sign of life and spiritual activity. But will any infer 
from this, that the unthavving congelation of a polar winter 
is the appropriate element of the Church, and the unbroken 
slumber of spiritual death her appropriate state and condi- 
tion ? The truth is, those words of Christ — " According to 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 201 

your faith be it unto you" — while they afford a key to all the 
past in the history of the Church, abundantly authorize the 
conclusion that the past is no necessary, stereotyped pattern 
for the future. There are churches that do not believe in 
seasons of special religious interest at all. It is part of their 
creed to deny and decry them ; and accordingly such seasons 
are never known among them, from generation to genera- 
tion. Other ecclesiastical communities in their immediate 
neighborhood may be in a revival state, while they remain 
as completely untouched as if they were composed of essen- 
tially different materials. Churches all around them may be 
wet — may be drenched with the precious dews of the third 
heaven, while they, like the fleece of Gideon in his second 
experiment, remain dry as tinder. On the other hand, most 
evangelical churches believe in occasional seasons of special 
religious interest; and this, accordingly, is the order of the 
day among them. Revival and declension, summer and 
winter, wakefulness and slumber, on the mount of active holi- 
ness to-day, in the valley of the shadow of spiritual death 
to-morrow — this is what they believe in, and this is what ac- 
tually takes place among them. But there is another view of 
the case, which the Church of God has much more reason 
to believe than either of the foregoing — to believe that she 
ought to be steadfast and immovable in the faith, and al- 
ways abounding in the work of the Lord, because he bids 
her to be so; and to believe that she can, through the suffi- 
ciency of his grace, because he tells her so. The only 
proper ground of faith is the word of God ; but there is noth- 
ing there which represents religion as a decent easy medioc- 
rity ; there is nothing there which represents religion as an 
intermittent fever, blazing and freezing alternately. I^o, but 
growing, going on to perfection, pressing forward towards 
the mark, increasing and abounding in love, one towards an- 
other and towards all men — always abounding in the work of 
the Lord. Such is the gospel type of religion — " and lo, I am 
w^ith you always," and " I will give you the Comforter, who 
shall abide with you forever," as the means of fulfilling it. 
Now let the Church believe this — believe that the rock, that 
cannot be moved, is the proper counterpart of what her 
Christian principles should be ; and a tree that is never sta- 
tionary, always growing, the proper counterpart of what 
her stature of holiness should be; and a fountain that is 
never empty, always full, always running over, the proper 



202 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

counterpart of what her active zeal in the Master's work 
should be ; and the presence of Christ, and the power of his 
Spirit, perpetually available to enable her to fulfil these re- 
quisitions — and then, why should she not fulfil them ? Why 
should she not be always what she never is but periodically 
— the loving spouse, the faithful handmaid, the zealous imi- 
tator of Jesus — always in earnest, always working, always 
growing — consistent in her virtues, holy in her example, ef- 
fectual in her prayers — and the Lord, in consequence, adding 
daily to his Church of such as shall be saved. What more 
does she need but to believe that, according to the word 
of Christ, this is what ought to be, and, by the grace of 
Christ, can be ? 

I. And now we appeal to you, dear brethren in Christ, if 
there are not certain parts in your own personal history 
which corroborate the doctrine we have been insisting on. 
When, after a period of declension, you have awoke to the 
enjoyments and the activity of a revival season, was not this 
among your first convictions — that you had been neglecting 
your duty ? And in the full flush and earnest ardor of that 
revival season, — doing your utmost to live near to God and 
like to Jesus, and exerting yourself to the utmost for the 
glory of God and the good of souls — did it ever occur to 
you, that you were doing more than your duty, more than 
the master might justly require of you? What then is the 
inference, but that the doctrine of a perpetual revival is 
simply the doctrine that Christians ought always to be doing 
their duty to Christ ? Is this a strange, unreasonable doc- 
trine ? Is it not self-evident as Euclid's axioms ? Are the 
obligations, which those whom Jesus bought with his death- 
groans owe him — are they occasional and periodical; are 
they not perpetual in their binding force ? And if his eflft- 
cient grace could enable you to fulfil them for a few weeks or 
months at once, can it not capacify you to fulfil them, w^ith- 
out interruption, as long as you have breath ? 

II. And if this doctrine be reasonable, scriptural, feasible, 
why not put it at once in practice ? Why not a perpetual 
as well as an occasional revival ? Why not always, as well 
as sometimes, fulfil the law of Christ ? Why not constantly 
as well as periodically conform to the conditions of growth 
and progress under which he hath placed his living body ? 
Is it not time that that practical doctrine, which makes the 
Church so much like Samson shorn of his locks — which avers, 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 203 

not in words, indeed, but in fact, that obedience to the 
mandates of his Lord and Master is to be the exception, and 
wholesale disobedience the general rule, — is it not time that 
doctrine were exploded, and obedience to him who hath 
bought her with his blood, become the order of the day, 
without any exception at all ? We ask you then to do what 
the love of Christ deserves of you, — consecrate yourselves 
to his service, not for a day or for a month, but forever, to 
do what the command of Christ requires of you. Be stead- 
fast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord ; 
and, in order to this, to do what the promise of Christ em- 
powers you, invoke the Spirit of his grace to become no 
casual visitant, but a permanent inhabitant of your heart, 
and make yd^, and make your Church through your co-oper- 
ation, an engine of perpetual motion for the glory of God ; 
growing in grace, and growing in numbers beneath his un- 
remitted nurture and converting powder, and waxing brighter 
and brighter in the beams of a heaven-emulating holiness, 
till her glorious light shall meet and worthily blend with the 
splendors of the millennial day. 



" How shall we escape if ive neglect so great salvation f — Heb. 
ii. 3. 

An essential part of a sermon is the application ; and the 
proper place for it according to common usage, is the end. 
It is expected that the body of the discourse shall be filled 
with arguments and views of divine truth addressed to the 
understanding, which at the close shall be concentrated in 
their practical bearings on the heart and conscience. But 
Paul, we fear, would have found as little favor with those 
who expect the minister of the gospel to preach by rule, as 
did the author of " The Course of Time," who, in his brief 
pulpit career, was severely criticised for his non-conformity to 
the prescriptive rules of sermonizing. That portion of the 
Divine Word from which we have taken the text, is an 
anonymous letter in form — an elaborate sermon in fact — ^ad- 
dressed by the apostle to his brethren in Palestine, according 
to the flesh and according to the spirit — a sermon in which 



204 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

Christ, in his essential greatness as the Son of God, in his 
divine authority as the prophet of heaven and the king of 
Zion, as the high priest of God's anointing, and the grand 
sacrifice of God's providing, is exalted above all other sacri- 
fices, and priests, and kings, and prophets, and angels, as 
the worthiest object of human faith, and hope, and love. 
But instead of deferring his application to the end of his dis- 
course, we have it here within fourteen verses of the begin- 
ning. He just brings the great Mediator on the stage, and 
then, like God at Jordan when John was baptizing him, ex- 
claims to the audience to whom he was preaching through his 
pen — See that ye hear him, take heed how ye treat him ; 
" for if the word spoken by angels was steadfast, and every 
transgression and disobedience received a just f^compense of 
reward, how shall we escape if we neglect so great salva- 
tion" — which was spoken and performed, proclaimed and 
wrought by one of more excellent name than angels, the 
brightness of the Father's glory, the Son of God! The 
truth is, that as no right-minded person can think of the 
human being, the parent, the friend, the benefactor to whom 
he owes every thing in a temporal sense, without an awaken- 
ing conviction of his obligations and of the criminality of his 
ingratitude ; even so, no sooner does the apostle call up before 
the eye of his mind the glorious Saviour — in his transcendent 
dignity, and his sacred and momentous relations to the hu- 
man race — than the appalling guilt of lightly esteeming his 
great salvation so vividly flashes in upon his perception, that 
he finds himself unable to go on with his argument till he 
has paused to virtually exclaim — God forbid that such guilt 
should ever be yours or mine ! 

I. The moral history of the world presents a cumulative 
argument to demonstrate the unescapable doom of every 
rejecter of the salvation of Christ. • That history, for the 
purposes of this argument, may be divided into four periods : 
from Adam to the deluge; from thence to Moses; from 
Moses to Christ ; and from thence to our own era. 

1. Now, it is obvious that if ever the sinners of our race 
had reason to expect impunity for their transgressions from 
the Lord of all, it was in the first of these periods. It is ob- 
vious that if, in the year of the world 1651, the whole human 
family had been brought to a formal trial at the bar of Eter- 
nal Justice, the advocate that had been admitted to argue 
their case might have made a more plausible plea for them 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 205 

than could be offered for any class of transgressors since. 
They have been left, he might have insisted, without a writ- 
ten law. No light has come from heaven to disclose to them 
the jDath of moral duty. They have been left to the glow- 
worm light of their own reason. No voice has come to them 
from the eternal throne, saying, This is the way, walk ye 
therein. They have been left to the guidance of their own 
natural faculties; and when once. gone astray, the process of 
perversion was irremediable, each generation being left to 
follow the uncounteracted impulse of ancestral influence and 
example ; even as when a river has burst its bank at a given 
point, the whole mass of Avaters behind follow through the 
breach, and permanently flow in the new channel. Then, 
too, he might have alleged, if their want of a revealed law 
has, so to speak, put them out -of communication with the 
throne of heaven, the long period of temporal existence allot- 
ted to them has tended to the same end. Is it strange that 
men should forget eternity, who, in the course of nature, 
may expect to live almost a whole millennium of time ? Is 
it strange that men should become unduly attached to the 
world, and unmindful of their God, when for almost a thou- 
sand years they are jDermitted to enjoy the former, — when 
for almost a thousand years their final meeting with the lat- 
ter is adjourned? But these, and whatever other considera- 
tions might have been alleged in their favor, had not a 
feather's weitrht with the Eternal Sovereio^n whose world 
they had filled with violence. Behold the proof of it in the 
summary vengeance which he took on the whole of them — 
not waiting till their earthly career was closed in the ordi- 
nary way, but cutting it short by one indiscriminate stroke, 
drowning their souls out of their bodies in order that those 
guilty souls might be subjected to their eternal doom the 
sooner. 

Here, then, is the basis of our argument — that precisely at 
that period of the world when sin was, all things considered, 
most excusable, it was held without excuse in the court of 
heaven ; that precisely at that period when transgression and 
disobedience had, comparatively speaking, most to palliate 
it, it was, for all that, signally and universally punished. 

2. Between the time when Noah went out of the ark and 
the time when Israel went out of Egypt, we have a period 
of about 850 years, morally distinguished above the former 
one, first, by the remembrance of that awful catastrophe 

18 



206 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

which left the son of Lamech and his family the sole posses- 
sors of a world which, a year before, had been swarming 
with hundreds of millions. ISTothing could be more calcu- 
lated to grave on the hearts of Noah and his posterity the 
reverential fear of God, than to think of that watery grave 
to which his penal vengeance had consigned their entire an- 
cestry. The great abbreviation of human life, which now 
took place, had a similar tendency. The bridge, — to borrow 
the imagery of Addison's beautiful allegory, — the bridge 
that spans the great gulf of death, and whose opposite abut- 
ments are two eternities, — which originally consisted ot 
almost a thousand arches, was now reduced to not more 
than one-sixth of that number. The world to come was 
practically brought six times nearer to this, and men were 
placed under so much the stronger motives to shape their 
course of life with reference to the life immortal, and had 
so much less time and less temptation to harden them- 
selves through the deceitfulness of sin. Add to this, that a 
part of mankind, in the latter portion of this period, had the 
benefit of that holy leaven which God infused into the un- 
sanctified mass of humanity, in consecrating the father of the 
faithful and his posterity as the nucleus of his Church, the 
repositories of his covenant, and the visible exemplifiers of 
his religion. The conclusion that we reach, then, is that if 
the world before the flood, destitute as it was of all these 
advantages, was still without excuse, much more the world 
that succeeded it. If the sins and transgressions of the for- 
mer deserved a vindictive recompense, much more the sins 
and transgressions of the latter. 

3. In the third of these periods, in order to pursue the 
cumulative nature of the argument, it will be needful to fix 
our attention mainly on that favored nation tQ whom Jeho- 
vah, who in other ages had been, in relation to the world, 
almost a God unknown as regards any direct communication 
with them, became, as nearly as possible, distinctly visible — 
assumed the chair of their literal chief magistracy, and by 
their own election — gave them not only, and from his own 
mouth, a comprehensive digest of moral duty, which might 
serve as a clear, unerring guide in every moral exigency of 
their lives, but furnished them, besides, a written civil code, 
which laid the foundations of their national polity in the im- 
mediate suggestions of eternal Avisdom; and a system of 
religion adapted to their circumstances, in which the infi- 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 207 

nitely holy and sin-abhorring One, with whom they had to 
do, was kept distinctly before their minds, and which, in its 
every sacrifice and oblation, gave significant intimation of 
the terms on which sin was to be expiated, and an offended 
God appeased. And besides all this, to keep this machinery 
of civil polity and religious rites in effectual motion — to make 
his law a living power among them, and himself a felt and 
living presence — his special providence was perpetually work- 
ing among them in the way of reward or punishment ; and a 
long line of prophets, for nearly a thousand years, were 
reciting to them the immediate messages from his throne, to 
confirm them in obedient virtue, to warn them of their sins. 
'* He hath not" — it is the admission of one of them — " he 
hath not done so by any people." " You only" — it is God's 
own assertion — "you only have I known" — known as the 
objects of my partial favor and immediate communications — 
" of all the nations of the earth." Here, then, assuredly, 
transgression must look for less impunity than in either of 
the former periods. If, without a divine law, and without a 
special retributive providence, and without a prophet, and, 
practically, almost without the knowledge of a God, the sin- 
ners who succeeded Noah and preceded Moses were hope- 
lessly obnoxious to the wrath of Heaven, how much more the 
sinner sprung from the loins of Abraham, who dishonored 
his great father and defied his father's God by a course of 
sinful disobedience, in spite of all these weighty motives to 
the contrary ! 

4. We come now to that era of which the leading theme 
of the text — the salvation of the gospel — is the controlling 
feature. And here, what strikes us at once is, the complete 
removal of all the moral disadvantages under which men 
labored in former ages, and the multiplication of facilities 
and motives unknown in any former age, crowding, urging 
themselves upon a sinful world to induce them to come to 
terms of pacification with Heaven. Here the same written 
law, by which Israel was distinguished above all that went 
before them, speaks out its commands and threatenings in the 
very accents of the Almighty. Here — what Israel only had 
hints and shadows of — here bleeds and dies the veritable pro- 
pitiation of God's providing, by which the problem of the 
sinner's extrication from the clutches of the law is solved, 
and a visible platform of salvation built, on which a guilty 
world is invited, in the name of God, to rest in eternal safety. 



208 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

Here, too, while the isthmus of time, which divides man 
from eternity, is narrowed to less than one-tenth of its origi- 
nal dimensions — from near a thousand to less than a hundred 
years — ^^eteruity itself, no more an undiscovered country, 
known but by vague hints and intimations, is unrolled before 
us, and all its mysterious secrets exposed to view. He who 
from everlasting was the chief inhabitant of heaven — he who 
laid the foundations of hell for heaven's first rebels — hath 
come to tell us, from personal knowledge, of all the bright 
attractions of the one — of all the resulting terrors of the 
latter. In his personal revelations we see the everlasting 
hills arise — the unclouded mansion and the living throne; 
we see the outer darkness — the lake of fire flashing through 
the gloom, and hear the infinite wailing that comes from 
thence ; the glory and the wrath to come are both before us. 
Here, then, is the sum of the argument. The antediluvian 
sinner, notwithstanding the primeval darkness of his times, 
and his peculiar temptations, was stricken with the vindictive 
stroke of God^ — righteously, of course, for when did the 
Judge of all the earth do otherwise than righteously ? But 
if they could not escape, how much more the sinners of whom 
Sodom was a specimen — who, besides the diminished tempta- 
tion to lose sight of their eternal destiny, by reason of their 
shorter term of life, had the awful warning of the flood before 
them, and the salutary examples of God's saints among them ! 
If there were no escape for them, how much less for the 
Abraham-born sinners — to whom, in addition to these advan- 
tages, pertained the promises, and the covenant, and the 
giving of the law, and the prophets, and at least the shadow 
of better things to come ! And if their doom was hopeless, 
how much more thine, dear gospel sinner — possessed of all 
the privileges of the sons of Abraham, and with a glorious 
appendix and supplement besides — assailed at one ear with 
the law-tones that come thundering from the very lips of 
God, and at the other with the sweetest whispers of his 
mercy — brought by the contracted span of thy mortal being 
within a step of eternity, and with its curtain drawn aside, 
and all its glories beaming, and all its baleful horrors flaming 
in thy very face througli the evidence of infallible witnesses, 
and with a Christ Almighty standing by to make the one 
thy own and save thee from the other ! How shall you escape 
if you neglect him ? See you how the argument embodied 
in the text, taking its departure from the very hour of the 



KEY. WM. B. WEED. 209 

fall, comes down like a long-sweeping wave, gathering force 
and volume in every generation, till it breaks, in a perfect 
deluge of conviction, on thy individual conscience ? Hear 
you the voice of the Lord God walking down the ages, wax- 
ing louder and louder in every period, till it fulminates in 
thy guilty ear, thou sinner in despite of Calvary — in tones 
sufficient to wake the dead. How shalt thou escape if you 
neglect this great salvation ? 

H. The essential greatness of this salvation is another 
argument for the inevitable fate of those who neglect it. It 
took but three days to prepare Israel for the giving of the 
law. It took four thousand years to prepare the world for 
the giving of the gospel. It was iirst prophesied by God 
himself, before tlie lies of the infernal serpent that sowed 
the seeds of ruin in the world's first parents, had ceased to 
vibrate in the airs of Eden. And then a continuous line of 
prophets took up the mighty theme, and made it their per- 
petual burden even till the last of them bid assembled thou- 
sands " Behold the Lamb of God." It was witnessed by 
every altar that was ever kindled in the succession of the 
covenant, from that of Abel to that evening sacrifice at Je- 
rusalem, just previous to the angelic serenade that made 
earth echo with heaven's music, in honor of the birth of a 
Saviour which is Christ the Lord. It was confirmed by all 
the signs and wonders wrought by that wondrous Child and 
his chosen successors, compelling nature to go out of her 
course, and suspend her laws, to attest the redemptive pro- 
ject of her God. And before its introduction into the world 
it had taxed the Eternal Mind, and even called into exercise a 
divine attribute of which no previous specimen had been 
given to the universe, — reserved for this special occasion, to 
frame and perfect this redemptive scheme. And in its ulti- 
mate development, it displayed the whole Deity in all his 
attributes, in a more transcendent light than his whole pre- 
vious eternity of being had disclosed. God has never done 
any thing like it — his masterpiece — his new creation, in 
comparison with which Be himself predicts that his fabri- 
cation of the material earth and heavens shall be no more 
remembered, nor come into mind. Now, with what square 
and compass will ye measure the monstrous guilt of slighting 
this greatest, sublimest work of God ? Oh, sinner, could you 
climb to his heaven, and cover the walls of his eternal palace 
with words of obscenity and blasphemy, it would be nothing 

18* 



210 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

to rejecting his great salvation! For that is to hurl foul 
scorn on the eternal wisdom, love and mercy, truth and jus- 
tice, that conspired to frame it, or are displayed in its visible 
exhibition. It is to pour contempt on every word of prophecy 
in which divine and human lips announced that salvation to 
the world. It is to flout with insult every display of omnipo- 
tence which, in attestation of it, turned nature from her 
course, and called the sick from their beds, and the dead 
from their graves. It is to point the finger of derision at 
every word of Jesus, and curl the lip in mockery at every 
blood-drop that welleth from those ruddy fountains. How 
shall they escape who do such things? "This," saith Je- 
hovah, " is my beloved Son ; hear ye him." " This is the 
will of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent." 
That is, he holds up to us his incarnate Son as the embodi- 
ment of the greatest, mightiest, sublimest enterprise he hath 
ever undertaken, and bids us honor it by receiving him as 
our salvation. To say I will not — to meet that demand with 
a flafrefusal — to assert that that salvation is not worthy of 
our acceptance — is to dishonor it — is to dishonor him in the 
deepest, darkest, most flagrant sense of which man is capa- 
ble, and beyond the capacity of any devil. How shall they 
escape that do it ? 

III. But there is one other light in which this subject may 
be presented. There is one other consideration w^hich gives 
additional point and intensification to the solemn query of 
the text. The very greatness of this mighty frame of gospel 
grace, proves it to be God's last and final expedient to save 
mankind. Of course, the only alternative of rejecting it is 
unescapable perdition. The former dispensations of the 
world were just the prefaces to the gospel volume — the vesti- 
bules to the sublime temple of gospel truth — the conducting 
avenues to its impregnable city of refuge. The original state 
of man, with no Bible but the book of nature, with no rule 
of duty but which was written on their heart, and no light 
to read either by but the light of reason, was meant to be 
preparatory to an economy distinguished by a law and a 
religion revealed from heaven — the one the expression of the 
divine will, and the other of the modes in which men might 
acceptably worship him. And that — you need go no further 
than this epistle for proof of it, for it was wiitten on purpose 
to prove it, — that was meant to be preparatory to the econ- 
omy which was inaugurated at the birth of Christ. But 



KEY. WM. B. WEED. 211 

what Avas that meant to be preparatory to? What new 
revelation of saving grace is fit to have the ISTew Testament 
for its preface ? What subsequent Redeemer is fit to have 
the Son of the Eternal for his type and %adow ? What 
ne^v atonement is fit to have his matchless sacrifice for its 
humble prefigurement ? You might well think us mad if 
we asked these questions in earnest. The remedial scheme 
of the gospel is a finality — majestically closing up the rear of 
God's expedients to save rebellious man. It is too great to 
have a successor, and it is too great to admit a substi- 
tute. In other matters there is room for choice; — there 
is none whatever here. Are you hungry? There are 
varieties of food, from which you may select that which suits 
your taste. Are you thirsty ? There is variety of beverages, 
from which you may select that which is most grateful to 
the palate. Are you sick ? There is variety of physicians, 
from which you may select the one most worthy of your 
confidence. But are you a sinner ? There is no variety of 
salvations, — but one bread and water of life — but one Saviour 
— that or nothing. That or death. Behold the argument. 
Let us endeavor to condense it into one transparent, crystal 
drop. The gospel scheme of salvation is the sacrificial death 
of God's Eternal Son. That is its leading, its all-pervading 
element. Take that away, and there is practically nothing 
left. If now there be any other plan, or scheme, or project, 
by which the sinner may be saved, which does not include 
this element, — then it follows that the sacrifice of God's 
Eternal Son was a needless superfluity, the shedding of his 
blood a needless waste, and his death a wanton cruelty on 
the part of the Eternal Father, whom it pleased to bruise 
him. And if this is too monstrous to be admitted, then the 
conclusion is, that men can be saved by no plan or scheme 
which does not include the vicarious death of the Son of 
God — that is, by no plan or scheme but that of the gospel. 
Of course, then, to discard that, is to be lost beyond escape. 
It is the victim-blood of God that makes the transcendent 
greatness of this salvation — makes it too great to admit a 
substitute — makes it, therefore, the sinner's only hope ; which 
to reject is to let go the last plank — is to throw away the last 
chance for life, and court perdition. 

The sum is this : The light, the knowledge of divine truth, 
of the will of God, of the duty of man, of the grounds on 
which God the sovereign can make peace with man the 



212 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

sinner, are as much greater under the Christian economy 
than under any that preceded it, as the blaze of noon tran- 
scends the earhest daybreak, or even the gloom of midnight 
reheved but by ap^few twinkling stars. And if in the darkest 
of these periods man were without excuse, and every trans- 
gression and disobedience received a just recompense of 
reward, how sliall the gospel sinner escape ? The salvation 
of the gospel is Heaven's masterpiece — involving the mightiest 
efforts which a God could employ — the most glorious exhibi- 
tion of his power and wisdom, truth and mercy, which a 
God could display, and the costliest sacrifice which a God 
could make. How shall he escape who proudly or carelessly 
turns away from it, pronouncing this matchless labor of a 
God unworthy of his recognition and acceptance ? The great- 
ness of this salvation, involving elements whose like or equal 
cannot possibly be found in any other remedial scheme, 
proves it to be the only one available — the ultimatum of God's 
mercy, and of the sinner's hope. How, then, shall he escape 
who rejects it? It is the storm-ridden vessel parting from 
her last anchor. It is the helpless and unprotected saying, 
Begone, to his last friend. It is the needy flinging away his 
last loaf. It is the dying rejeicting the last remedy which 
medical skill can devise to save him. How shall the guilty 
escape, against whom a thousand witnesses appear, and not 
one for him ? Against thee, dear gospel sinner, the testimony 
o,f a world, both dead and living, the testimony of eternity, 
the lost and the saved that are embosomed there, and the tes- 
timony of the Triune Occupants of the eternal throne, is pi-e- 
paring. The men who sunk with bubbling groan beneath 
the waves of the deluge — the men of Sodom, on whom 
angry Heaven rained fire and brimstone — the men of Israel, 
on whom God repeatedly inflicted the stroke of penal death 
by thousands — the heathen sinners, of every former age, 
now weltering in the burning lake, — will witness against 
thee as a sinner with less reason, more flagrantly without 
excuse, than either. And God will witness against thee, to 
whose clearly proclaimed sovereignty thou hast been a rebel, 
of whose clearly, and kindly, and mercifully announced grace 
thou hast been a cold contemner. And every word of 
Jesus will witness against thee, and every drop of blood, and 
every mortal groan which broke from his dying bosom, 
which ought to have broken thy heart all to pieces, and 
could not touch it. And all the glorified at Christ's right 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 213 

hand will witness against thee, as having been equal to the 
most favored of those in thy facilities for winning an immor- 
tality like theirs. And all the lost ones at Christ's left hand 
will witness against thee, as not less deserving of a fate 
like theirs, in view of thy privileges, than the most inexcusa- 
ble of them all. How then shall you escape ? Alas ! dear 
hearer, there can be but one answer to this question, as 
long as this fatal if maintains its significancy in relation to 
you. If he who embraces the plan of gospel grace, in hearty 
faith and penitence, fulfils the unfailing conditions of salva- 
tion, not less does he who rejects it, through hardness of 
heart and unbelief, fulfil the unfailing conditions of damna- 
tion. 



■♦ » » 



''^ And if any man sin we have an advocate with the leather, 
Jesus Christ the righteous^ — 1 John ii. 1. 

I BEGix by remarking that the title here given to the 
Lord Jesus suggests a sufficient answer to the objection to 
his supreme divinity w^hich is foimded on that inferiority to 
the Father which he so often jDredicates of himself. Those 
who reject the doctrine of the Trinity, and place Christ be- 
neath the Eternal One in the scale of being, insist that they 
do nothing more than is sanctioned by the express admission 
of Christ himself How can he, they demand, who says, 
" Why callest thou me good ? there is none good but one, 
that is God," be as good as He ? And how can he who 
says, " My Father is greater than I ?" be as great as He ? 
And how can he who says, "I came not to do my own 
will, but the will of him that sent me," be the equal of Him 
w^hose servant, whose subordinate he thus explicitly styles 
himself? 

Now, in reply to this, let it be observed that inferiority in 
office is one thing, inferiority in nature is quite another 
thing. The judge who sits on the bench to try a cause, is, 
in official rank, above the lawyer who stands at the bar and 
pleads that cause before him. But what then ? Is he there- 
fore above him in nature ? You see the absurdity of the 
idea at once. Nay, more, the inferior position as to office in 
which the lawyer stands, is voluntarily assumed on his part. 
There is many an advocate who might sit on the bench if he 



214 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

would, but prefers a station at the bar. He is there on no 
compulsion — it is his own free choice. 

Even so, when in the ages of eternity the three persons of 
the Godhead sat in council to provide for the anticipated 
necessity of saving a ruined world, — as freely as God the 
Father assumed the character of judge and justifier, so freely 
did God the Son assume the character of mediator and ad- 
vocate. " No man taketh my life from me, but I lay it down 
of myself" True, as our advocate he placed himself in an 
official inferiority to the Judge of all ; but this voluntary 
assumption of an inferiority in the scale of office argues no 
inferiority in the scale of being. Nay, it argues just the con- 
trary — an equality in the scale of being. For it is contrary 
to all ideas of fitness that an advocate should be the essential 
inferior of the judge before whom he pleads. We know no 
order of intelligences below that of man. But suppose there 
were, and suppose you had a cause to be adjudicated before 
the supreme court of the State, involving your property or 
life, — would you employ one of these inferior beings as your 
advocate ? No, you would employ one who was most like 
the judge in moral nature and intellectual capacity, — who 
would be most likely to know what plea would avail with 
him, and be most capable of making it. If you had a cause 
to plead in a court where a man was judge, you would em- 
ploy a man for your advocate. If you had a cause to plead 
where an angel was judge, you would want an angel for your 
advocate. And so that man who knows that he has a cause 
to plead, involving the life and death of his soul, where a 
God is to be the judge, — give him the whole universe to se- 
lect from, and he will.see the necessity of choosing nothing 
short of a God for his advocate. If he may be man too, so 
much the better. And because the proceedings of God are 
always in conformity with the most perfect fitness of things, 
if Jesus Christ the righteous hath been appointed by him to 
be our advocate with him, we may be sure that he answers 
to these conditions. He is God as well as man. 

I. Who, then, is this advocate ? — and what is our assurance 
that it is safe to entrust the pleading of our cause to him? 
When a lawyer commences business, he begins with tender- 
ing his professional services to the public, and referring to 
certain responsible persons to indorse his qualifications. So 
Christ has advertised himself as an advocate to plead for us 
with God. " Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy 



I 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 215 

laden, and I will give you rest." " No man cometh nnto 
the Father but by me." For his qualifications he refers us 
to the testimony of the Holy Ghost. We turn to that testi- 
mony. And, first, he is the mighty God — the author of the 
divine law, and therefore pecuHaily fitted to plead a case 
involving its claims. With him are laid up all the treasures 
of wisdom and knowledge, and therefore he best knows 
what arguments to use in pleading that case. God loved 
him before the world was, and therefore is sure to listen to 
his arguments with a favorable ear. He bore your sorrows, 
and therefore knows how to feel for them. He was wounded 
for your transgressions ; he knows the mountain load of woe 
which they impose upon your soul, for he bore it on the 
cross, and therefore is disposed to plead for its removal from 
you. He has drunk the cup of God's wrath for sin, and 
therefore is prepared to plead with a sympathetic interest 
that it may pass away from you. In a word, he is man, and 
therefore can feel your case ; he is God, and therefore able 
to plead it with the Father ; he is one wdth the Father, and 
therefore sure to succeed. Feelings in which endearing 
sympathy, and tender commiseration, and affectionate inter- 
est are blended, — powers in which a perfect knowledge of 
your case, its difficulties and its dangers, unites with, a per- 
fect knowledge of the only effectual mode of pleading it, — 
and i^rospects of success founded on the intimate relation, 
the unity, the oneness that subsists between him and the 
Judge of all, — these are the credentials w^hich recommend 
Jesus Christ the righteous as the best, the most accomplished 
advocate to plead the cause of your soul with God. 

n. What is requisite in order to enlist his services in our 
behalf? Usually, in engaging an advocate, two prelimina- 
ries are necessary: you must feel the need of his services, 
and you must pay him for them. Without the first, you 
would never think of asking for his advoca<?y ; and without 
the last, he would in most cases refuse to render it. But 
only the first of these preliminaries is requisite in order to 
engage the advocate spoken of in the text. He demands no 
retaining fee. But what then ? Will he plead the cause of 
the soul for nothing^ ? No, but he intends to take the soul 
itself for pay. He intends, when he has successfully argued 
its case, to claim it as his own, and employ his sanctifying 
Spirit to make it worthy to be his. Therefore he will have 
the man who intrusts his cause to him, intrust it all to him. 



216 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

He who is seeking, by reading the Scriptures, by listening to 
sermons and exhortations, and by a diligent outward observ- 
ance of the commands of God, to work out a righteousness 
of his own, — Jesus Christ the righteous will have nothing to 
do with him. These things are useful only so far as they 
make the soul to feel its absolute need of the aid of the 
Divine Advocate ; and it must feel this — must feel that he, 
and he only, can remove it an inch from its present position 
of guilt and ruin, before the powers of that advocate will be 
exerted in its behalf. He will have the whole credit of its 
acquittal before the Judge of all, or none of it. It is not his 
purpose that when he comes to introduce his ransomed ones 
into the New Jerusalem as the trophies of his powei^ as the 
advocate between God and man, any of them shall gainsay 
his right to call them so by claiming part of the work of 
their acquittal as their own. It is not his purpose that when 
the souls whom the Father hath given him shall shine as 
jewels in his mediatorial crown, and admiring angels, con- 
trasting their former polhition with their present brightness 
and beauty, shall give glory to the Lamb to whose atoning 
blood and interceding breath that change is owing, — it is not 
his purpose that one of them should arise and say, " A part 
of this glory belongs to me : I prepared the way for the 
success of your plea ; I did certain things ; I took certain 
prehminary steps which had already, in part, propitiated the 
Sovereign Judge before you undertook the business ; — and 
therefore, though I say, 'Worthy is the Lamb that was 
slain,' I feel at liberty to add, ' I, in some measure, am wor- 
thy too.' " The song of redemption is to be marred by no 
such miserable variations as this. The guilty one must 
come, all guilty as he is, defiled as he may be, polluted as 
he may be, and, with no previous preparation except the 
deep, abiding consciousness of his imperative need of the 
advocacy of Jesus Christ the righteous, commit the whole 
business of pleading his cause to him, and give to him the 
whole credit of his acquittal — to him the whole honor of his 
justification — to him the whole praise of his sanctification — 
to him the whole glory of his glorification. To make this 
more apparent, — 

HI. I will notice the circumstances in which the soul is 
placed when this great advocate undertakes its cause. A 
person has committed some capital offence — has been tried, 
found guilty, and condemned to die ; and now, with the 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 217 

scaffold staring him in the face, with the prospect of death 
before him — ^yhich even when uncertain is fearful enough, 
but made still more fearful by its absolute certainty, — of 
death, which even 

"when friends around, 

With their kind bands the dyin^ pillow smooth, 
And love's sweet accents blunt the expiring pang,'' 

is awful enough, but still more awful in the aspect of a violent 
disruption of soul and body beneath the hands of a heartless 
executioner, — even now the thought is suggested to him 
that there may yet be hope for him in the legislature or the 
magistrate with whom the pardoning power resides. You 
have seen the eagerness which, under such circumstances, 
the condemned one and his friends have shown to avail 
themselves of this gleam of hope — what efforts have been 
used to enlist the sympathy of the public — how individuals 
have been implored with tears to sign the memorial which it 
was hoped might move the pardoning power to mercy ;— - 
and all this because a life which must, at all events, expire 
by its own limitation in a few short years, is in danger. 

But the cases where the advocate described in the text 
employs his powers of pleading, are those in which the life 
of souls is forfeited. It is when his conscience hath dragged 
him to the bar of Heaven's justice, and there, acting both 
as accuser and witness, charges him with having broken the 
law of God in thought, word, and deed, and Justice, the 
stern, inexorable guardian of that law, hath put on his aspect 
of vindictive frowns to pronounce the awful curse which 
banishes him from happiness, and from heaven, and from 
God for evermore, — it is then the trembling saul applies to 
the great advocate Jesus Christ the righteous, and invokes 
his prevailing powers as the only barrier between him and 
wrath eternal. And it is time : for the voice of Justice, the 
voice of the Spirit, the voice of conscience, and the word of 
God, are ringing in his ears nothing but indignation and 
wrath, tribulation and anguish — "The soul that sinneth it 
shall die." And now, when the darkness of despair is gath- 
ering round him, when a petition for his pardon, backed by 
the influence, signed by the hand of every man on earth and 
angel in heaven, would be of no avail — would be shrivelled 
to ashes in a moment by those devouring flamas of justice 
which are circling the throne around and incessantly parting 
from the angry eve of Him who sits thereon, — now, all help- 

19 



218 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

less and despairing, he throws himself at the feet of Jesus 
Christ the righteous, saying, " Plead my cause, or I am lost 
— ' Save, or I perish.' " 

IV. What now is the plea by which the Great Advocate 
defends the soul that hath thus thrown himself on his inter- 
cession? "I," says the great Roman orator and lawyer, 
Cicero, " am accustomed, when a client presents himself, to 
make myself perfectly acquainted with the circumstances of 
his case, and then imagine those circumstances my own, and 
plead the case just as if it were my own." What he did in 
imagination, the advocate Christ Jesus does in reality. He 
makes the case of the client for whom he undertakes so com- 
pletely his own, that it would be impossible to condemn his 
client without condemning the advocate himself 

Father, he cries, I claim this soul for mine. True, he hath 
sinned — but be the weight of his sins on me. True, he is 
guilty — but be the burden of his guilt on me. True, he de- 
serves to die — but I have died already, and let my death 
stand for his. He has no merits — but I give him the benefit 
of mine. He has no riojhteousness — but I clothe him with 
mine. He hath violated thy law — but I have kept it, every 
jot and tittle, and let my obedience stand for his want of it. 
He has sold himself to sin — but I have paid his ransom, and 
demand that he be set free. He hath sold himself to Satan — 
but I have subdued the tyrant, and demand that his captive 
be set at large. He hath made himself obnoxious to the 
power of death — but I have conquered it, and demand that 
the sentence of death shall pass away from him. I appeal to 
thy engagement, when the covenant of redemption was 
formed between thee and me. Thou didst promise, that if I 
would make my soul an offering for sin, I should see a seed 
that should prolong their days, and the pleasure of the Lord 
should prosper in my hand. To that promise I appeal, and 
claim the benefit thereof for this trembhng soul. I claim 
him as a part of the promised seed. I claim him as the 
fruit of the travail of my soul. I claim him as part of the 
purchase of my blood. Behold, I throw my arms around 
him, and link his fate with mine. His deficiencies I 'under- 
take to make up, and the benefit of my all-sufficiency I give 
to him. I appeal to the love thou didst bear me before the 
world was, and claim that that love may be shared by him. 
I appeal to my humiliation, and claim that it may be made 
effectual to deliver him from the bondage of sin. I appeal 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 219 

to my exaltation, and claim that it may be made available to 
exalt him into the liberty of the sons of God. I have died — 
let him be pardoned. I have risen again — let him be justified. 

I. Behold, fellow-sinners, the character, the abilities, and 
the prospects of success by which Jesus Christ the righteous 
is recommended as your advocate, and what is necessary to 
engage his services in your behalf. Do you feel tLe need of 
him ? Do you feel that he only can successfully plead your 
cause wdth God — and that some one must plead it or you are 
lost ? Then you have all the preparation which is necessary 
to enlist him. Hope not, by any thing you can do, to make 
him more Avilling to undertake for you than he is at present. 
He is willing now to undertake your case, just as it is, and 
to seek to better it is only to make him turn his back upon 
you. Are you a high-handed enemy of God ? The greater 
will be his glory in reconciling you to him. Are you a great 
sinner ? The greater will be his glory in saving you. Are 
you richly deserving of condemnation ? The greater will 
be his glory in procuring your justification. Just give up all 
other hope — go to the Great Advocate, and say. Lord Jesus, 
plead my cause, or I perish — and if sov^^eign liiercy can be 
procured for you by the interceding breath of a pleading 
God, you shall have it. If, on the other hand, the arrows of 
God's justice reach you there, it must be through the breast 
of his dear Son. 

But, perhaps, after all, you feel no need of this Advocate. 
Dear soul, you must feel it — and sure as the truth of God, 
you will feel it — though it may be not till his services are no 
longer available. The day shall come when this advocate 
will be an advocate no more — when he who now pleads at 
the bar of God shall sit upon his throne — when he who now 
intercedes shall sentence — when he who is now the only hope 
of sinners shall be the chiefest terror. And mark you, when 
Jesus Christ the righteous ascends the judgment throne, his 
place as an advocate will remain forever vacant. Xo being 
in the universe will be found adequate to fill it. We exhort 
you to bespeak the assistance of the Great Advocate while 
yet it is available, and remember that every moment you 
defer to do so, you are increasing your risk of standing be- 
fore, the judgment seat of Christ, with no one to intercede 
for you — with no one to interpose a plea for pardon between 
you and the wrath of God and the Lamb. 

n. Christian brethren, the words I have dwelt upon were 



220 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

originally addressed to such as you. In the preceding chap- 
ter the apostle had been warning his brethren against self- 
deception. " If," says he, " we say we have fellowship with 
him, and walk in darkness, we he, and do not the truth." 
But what then ? we may sujDpose him to add — if such be the 
case with you, do I bid you despair ? Far from it, " for if 
any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus 
Christ the righteous." This declaration furnishes every 
Christian, not with a pretext for sinning, but with a motive 
not to despair in consequence of having sinned. N"o child 
of God would ever think of wilfully wandering from him be- 
cause he has an advocate to plead his cause and restore him 
to his favor. But if, dear brother, you are walking in dark- 
ness — if you have not that delight in the pursuits of holiness 
— that enjoyment in rehgion — that fellowship with the Father, 
which is the privilege of his saints, go at once to the Great 
Advocate and throw your cause into his hands. Has he 
pleaded it successfully once ? He shall plead it as success- 
fully again. Has his intercession once made the Father smile 
upon you? The same intercession shall make the Father 
smile again. Has his interest with God once brought you 
into his sacred fold ? The same interest shall bring you back 
to it. Oh, when you hear him saying in behalf of his fol- 
lowers — not the eleven merely, — for he adds, "Neither pray 
I for these alone, but for them alsQ which shall believe on me 
through their word" — when you hear him saying, "I pray 
not that thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that 
thou shouldst keep them from the evil" — can you doubt that 
he is just as ready to pray that they may be delivered from 
the evil when it overtakes them ? Or has the tempter sug- 
gested to you that you have been deceiving yourself from the 
lirst, and that the Great Advocate has really never undertaken 
your case? The more need, then, that he should undertake 
it now. Forget your whole past experience — forget all but 
this one thing, that the Mighty Advocate is all-prevalent and 
all-wiUing to save, unto the uttermost, the soul that ca,sts itself 
upon him. Then cast your soul^ in all its helplessness, upon 
him, and he shall make in your behalf the same prevailing 
plea we have just recited — that plea which brings to the bur- 
dene done " beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, 
and the garments of praise for the spirit of heaviness," 



KEV. WM. B. WEED. 221 



''^ For as hy one maris disobedience many were made sinners^ 
so by the obedience of one shall rnany be made righteous!''* — 
Rom. V. 19. 

A well-know:?^ preacher in a neighboring city, in a recent 
attempt to defend himself against the charge of denying the 
doctrine of human depravity, asserts his behef, "that all 
men are sinful — deplorably sinful — that this is a dark and ap- 
palling fact which meets us at every turn, and that the min- 
ister of the gospel who ignores or denies it does not under- 
stand his business." "At the same time," he says, "I do 
not pretend to go back of that phenomenon and inquire into 
the reasons of it. As to the theory that all men are sinners 
because of their connection with their first parents, I say 
nothing. I have nothing to do, except with the fact that 
they are sinners." And why, — perhaps some of our hearers 
are ready to ask, — why is not this a just and common-sense 
view of the case ? The passenger at sea wakes up some 
morning, and finds himself shipwrecked on a desert coast. 
[NTow why should he concern himself with the inquiry 'how 
this catastrophe came to pass ? The only practical question 
with him is not how he came there, but how shall he get 
away. Even so I find, myself in a deplorable state of sin 
and misery. My own consciousness bears witness to the 
former. My own conscience conspires with the word of in- 
spiration to attest the latter. Kow why should I go search- 
ing through the ages to find the reason of this ? And what 
will it avail me — what practical end will it serve — supposing 
I am able, at length, to fiisten the original cause of it on 
that first father from w^hose primeval loins I sprang ? Be- 
sides, this subject of our relation to Adam, as affecting our 
moral character and status, has given birth to a variety of 
disputes, objections, cavils (if we are sinners because of our 
descent from him, how are we to blame for it? &c.), which 
tend to divert the mind from the only question of practical 
moment — how shall I be divested of the character of a sin- 
ner, and be absolved from the guilt and exempted from the 
doom of one? Better concentrate our minds on the pro- 
visions which the gospel makes for this, and leave to vain 
speculators all questions as to the origin, the cause, and rea- 

19* 



222 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

son of that dread fatality which has palled the race, ourselves 
included, in the dark unifoi-m of a wholesale depravity. 

I propose then to assign certain reasons why, in my opinion, 
it is fit and proper that we inchide among our views of di- 
vine truth an intelligent admission and appreciation of the 
fact, that by one man sin entered into the world — that by 
one man's disobedience many were made sinners. And — 

I. ^Because it is an undoubted item, part and jDarcel of 
divine truth. The connection of tlie original sin of Adam 
and the universal sinfulness of his posterity, in the way of 
cause and effect, is either clearly implied or directly taught 
in several parts of the divdne oracles — in the 3d of Genesis, 
in the 7th of Ecclesiastes, in the 15th of 1st Corinthians. It 
is the formal subject of the last half of this 5th of Romans. 
In those ten verses we have it explicitly asserted, six times 
over, that man's first disobedience was the parent from which 
the universality of sin and death, which has characterized and 
reigned over every generation of his successors, was born. 
Now, what right have we to lay those statements on the 
shelf as useless, or of questionable or of hurtful tendency ? 
What right have we to make them an exception to the aver- 
ment that " all Scripture is profitable for doctrine, for correc- 
tion, for reproof, for instruction in righteousness ? " What 
right have we to make an exception when God himself 
makes none? What say you to the Bible publisher who 
should leave out those passages from every copy of his 
edition? Would it not be just that taking away from the 
book of God which whoso doeth — so you read on the last 
page of Revelation — " God shall take away his part out of 
the book of life ?" See you, too, that in virtually nullifying 
one part of Scripture, you are opening a door — making a 
breach into the inviolate inclosure of divine truth, through 
which the cloven foot of error and heresy may come stalking 
in, and trample into annihilation all the rest of it. I deny 
the atonement. We are not saved by the blood of Christ. 
But is not that fact directly taught in such and such places, 
chapter and verse ? Yes, but we have nothing to do with 
those passages. They are altogether useless and unmeaning. 
I deny the doctrine of future damnation. The wicked shall 
not be turned into hell, nor go away into everlasting punish- 
ment. But the Bible says so repeatedly. Yes, but we 
ignore all that. It does no good — it only serves to prejudice 
men against the ^Scriptures — and therefore we have con- 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 223 

eluded to apply an expunging process to every text that has 
endless punishment in it. Now, what could he say to this 
who proposes to proceed with those passages which connect 
the sin of Adam with that of his posterity in precisely the 
same way — to leave them out of the account — to give them 
no place among his views of divine truth — to practically 
cashier them as unprofitable or pernicious ? He is just show- 
ing the enemies of divine truth the way to cashier the whole 
of it. No, God never asked us what his Bible should con- 
tain. Its contents are such as he pleased, — and the one alter- 
native forces us to reject the whole of it, and take the eon- 
sequences, or to embrace the whole as — not indeed in equal 
degree, yet all without exception — precious. He tells us it 
is all profitable. Is it for us to contradict him ? Depend 
upon it, if our text and the similar statements with w^hich it 
stands connected were wholly useless, or nearly hurtful, they 
would have had no place here. The only rational course for 
lis is to take them as they are, and endeavor to turn them to 
the profitable account for which they were designed. 

II. It is fit and proper that we should include among our 
views of divine truth an intelligent appreciation of the fact 
for which our text is one of the vouchers, because it is the 
only known explanation of by far the most important and 
interesting phenomenon which this world presents. The 
knowledge of brutes is confined to actual facts and things. 
The knowledge of men includes the reasons of facts, and the 
causes of things. "I would give any thing to know the 
reason of that," — so I heard a young lad in the street saying 
to his companion, as they stood gazing at a rather unusual 
display of the northern light. '' And there is a man," came 
spontaneously to my lips — the inquisitive spirit of a man, in 
distinction from other animals — not content with merely 
looking at an interesting natural phenomenon, but wanting 
to know what made it. The power to understand the rela- 
tions of cause and effect, is a distinctive human capacity. 
The desire to understand them, is a distinctive human appe- 
tite. The actual understanding of them, is the largest seg- 
ment of human knowledge. To trace the visible phenomena 
of the earth and heavens to their causes, principles, natural 
laws, — what is this but a definition of natural science in all 
its departments ? To trace poHtical events to their causes 
is the science of history, in distinction from history consid- 
ered as a mere schoolboy recital of bare facts. Now we 



224 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

repeat, that by far the most striking and interesting phe- 
nomenon which the world presents, is the universal wrong- 
heartedness of all its human inhabitants — is the fact that all 
the generations of man, the moment they are capable of 
moral action, show a moral incapacity for any thing but 
wrong moral action ; that the w^hole human progeny with 
which the Universal Parent has stocked this world, spiritu- 
ally turn rebel against their Father, if not literally, as soon 
as they are born ; that while every thing else the Almighty 
made, whether animate or inanimate, passively or instinct- 
ively fulfils the end for which God made it, man alone, and 
without a single exception in all the species, manifests an 
utter natural aversion to the end for which God made him, 
that is, to glorify and enjoy his Maker. And am I to be 
told, the cause and reason of this most astonishing phenom- 
enon is a thing of no consequence ? What, sirs ! is it a mat- 
ter of interest to know how the dew is formed, what gener- 
ates the rain-drops, what causes the Hghtning, w^hat gets up 
the splendid fireworks of the northern evening sky, yet no 
matter of interest to know why we are all akin to the devils 
in our native enmity to God ? Have men been crowned 
with everlasting fame for telling us why the fire burns, and 
why the wind blows, or why light and darkness reign suc- 
cessively, and why, under what laws, the world and its sister 
planets make their annual procession through the celestial 
signs, and have we no gratitude for the apostle in telling us 
why the world sins — when, having in the previous pages of 
this epistle employed his pencil of inspiration to draw the 
moral portrait of universal humanity in one dead black of 
unalleviated depravity, proved both Jews and Gentiles that 
they are all under sin, stopped every mouth and laid the 
whole world guilty before God, he proceeds in this chapter 
to tell us the reason of it — because " by one man sin entered 
into the world, and death by sin ; and so death passed upon 
all men, for that all have sinned ?" Is it Hke a man to call 
such an explanation of such a phenomenon useless and incon- 
sequential? This world came into being; this world is 
cursed wdth sin. Dare any doubt which of these facts is 
most interesting — which comes nearest home to us? Who, 
then, who finds satisfaction in reading the explanation of the 
former fact in the first of Genesis, but must peruse with 
deeper interest the explanation of the latter, according to 
the apostle, in the third ? Is it important to know how, in 



EEV. WM. B. WEED. 225 

what manner, the world and all that it contains came into 
existence ? — and can it be superfluous to know how, in what 
manner, this world and all that it contains came under the 
curse of sin and the hoof of Satan ? 

III. But the truth asserted in the text is not one of merely 
speculative interest. It presents the only ground on which 
we can any way reconcile the universality of human sinful- 
ness with the Bible representations of the divine character. 
Conceive this world had hitherto been wholly uninhabited, 
so far as human beings are concerned; and conceive the 
Maker should, for the first time, people it to-day by the 
same process of creation which originated Adam — should, 
from the dust of the earth, manufacture some eight hundred 
or a thousand million human bodies, and breathe into them 
the breath of life, and they all became living souls ; and con- 
ceive that all of them, without exception, should go astray 
as soon as they were created — that the first and universal 
moral developments, in one and all of them, should be only 
sinful, " to all that's good averse and blind, and prone to all 
that's ill." Who now would be responsible for these moral 
machines that all went wrong? Who but he who made 
them out of nothing ? And how could this be reconciled to 
his supreme preference to holiness and his supreme aversion 
to moral evil ? Might it not be said, his preference is clearly 
the other way when he thus gives birth to a race of beings 
in whom moral evil is their universal type of character? 
Might it not be said, here is palpable proof that he hateth 
righteousness and loveth iniquity, in that he deliberately 
chooses, by his own immediate creative act, to multiply the 
latter instead of the former ? Would not the inference be 
as fair as when, seeing your neighbor planting his garden 
with a certain kind or kinds of vegetables, to the exclusion 
of certain other kinds, you conclude that he likes the former 
best ? But it plainly comes to the same thing if you adopt 
the view of Pelagius, whom Augustine confounded, and which 
is asserted by many at present, that the human race, as it 
actually exists to-day, are no way affected, as regards their 
moral complexion, by their relation to their ancestors or to 
their common ancestor — that they come into the world in 
the same condition, morally, as if no such relation existed. 
For the question at once arises. Why do they all go astray 
as soon as they are born ? Why are the first and universal 
moral developments, in one and all of them, only sinful? 



226 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

Who is responsible for these moral machines that all go 
astray ? You say their relation to their ancestors has not 
any thing to do with it. But who besides their ancestors 
had any hand in bringing them into existence ? Who be- 
sides their ancestors can be any way responsible for their 
moral proclivities? Who, except their Maker? If, there- 
fore, it is not owning to their parents, or their first parent, 
that they all sin as soon as they can, it must be directly 
owing to their God, because he chose to make them so. 
What then ? You must either undertake to whitewash the 
Ethiopian blackness of human depravity — you must deny that 
all men are by nature sinners and children of wrath, that is, 
you must deny the Bible and make God a liar, — or you must 
pronounce him the sole, immediate author of that sinful na- 
ture — you must pronounce him, in the directest sense in 
^vhich the thing is possible, the author of sin. This, I say, 
is your only alternative, as long as you assert that there is 
no connection between our sinfulness and that of our fathers 
or of our first father. The only way of escape from it is that 
presented by the text, which j^laces the origin of sin in the 
voluntary disobedience of the first man, whom God created 
holy, and makes that the source from which the spirit of 
disobedience to God has flowed through all the generations 
of his descendants. 

IV. But now it may be asked. How doe3 this help the 
matter? It only removes the difliculty one step further 
back, seeing it cannot be denied that God is the author of 
that arrangement by w4iich the sin of Adam was entailed on 
his posterity. We answer, to account for the universal sin- 
fulness of man in the terms of the text, is to bring that phe- 
nomenon and the cause thereof within the scope and compass 
of one of the, most familiar laws of human economy, of Avhich 
the world is full of exemplifications, and w^hich no rational 
mind, that I know, ever thought of making the ground of a 
serious imputation against the Lord of all. That law is this : 
that there shall be a certain identification between the pro- 
genitor and his offspring — that the child shall follow the 
fates and fortunes of his father. There are four millions of 
human beings in this country who are held and reputed to 
be chattels personal — property that may be owned, bought, 
and sold, like furniture or like cattle. How came they so ? 
Because they are the children of their parents. They are 
slaves because their mothers, or fathers, or both, were slaves. 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 227 

Those whom I am now addressing are the dh^ect opposite of 
this — as free as you can be consistently with your personal 
and social well-being. And wherefore? Because you are 
the children of your fathers — because you are descended 
from an ancestral line of freemen. The eastern section of 
Europe is occuj^ied by an empire of sixty milKons, less than 
one half of whom literally own all the rest (though, thank 
God, a better day is dawning there), and all have a master 
whose will is their law — all under a government in whose 
administration they have no voice. And wherefore ? Be- 
cause they are the children of their fathers — born serfs, or 
born subjects of imperial despotism. Had they sprung from 
American loins, they would have been your equals in the 
enjoyment of personal and political liberty. The central 
region of Asia is occupied with an empire of three hundred 
millions, as ignorant of the true God and the true religion 
as the beasts that perish. And wherefore ? Because they 
are the children of their parents — descended from a race of 
polytheists. And if the true God and the true religion are 
universal objects of knowledge with the present inhabitants 
of England, Germany, Sweden, the United States, they owe 
it, under God, directly to their parentage, because they are 
descended respectively from a race of Christians. I might 
go on to indicate plenty of individual illustrations of the 
same principle, but your own observation will supply them. 
You have but to look round you to see, in innumerable 
cases, the temporal circumstances, favorable or otherwise, — 
the social standing, high or low, — the personal habits and 
peculiarities, amiable or otherA\dse, of sons and daughters, 
fixed, shaped, and determined by their connection w^ith their 
fathers and mothers. Behold in the averment of the text 
simply another, though confessedly the most striking and 
universal exemplification of the same law or principle. All 
men are sinners because they are the children of their origi- 
nal father — because they are the descendants of sinful pro- 
genitors — because they belong to a race which was polluted 
at the fountain, though that fountain was originally pure as 
the water of life. All have a heart whose first aspiration is, 
"Evil, be thou my good," and a carnal mind whose first 
moral aspiration is enmity to God, because they follow the 
moral status of the original parent from w^hose loins they 
sprung, to whom just such a perverted heart and God-defy- 
ing mind belonged. 



228 SEPwMONS BY THE LATE 

"Now we see in a moment that this is something very dif- 
ferent from the supposition that God is the direct, immediate 
author of that carnal heart and mind in the case of every 
human being. No doubt, in one sense or another, he is 
ultimately the cause of all things. But what he does directly 
and immediately, is one thing ; what he permits to be done 
as the result of natural laws or human impulses, is another. 
It would be one thing for him to create a man to-day on the 
coast of Africa, and directly after command an angel to bear 
him to some land of bondage, and consign him to hopeless 
slavery ; it is another thing that he has permitted human 
cupidity to steal their fellow-creatures from the coast of 
Africa and consign them and their posterity to perpetual 
bondage. In the former case, w^ho would justify him? In 
the latter, who thinks of arraigning him ? It would be one 
thing for him to create to-day a race of full-grown men who 
should manifest, from the first, an inveterate propensity to 
ignore the true God and worship idols, and practise all the 
cruel abominations of paganism ; it is another thing that he 
permits the present generation of pagans, in different coun- 
tries, to ignore the true God and worship idols, and practise 
all the cruel abominations of paganism, in consequence of 
their descent from a pagan ancestry, who, in the first in- 
stance, voluntarily exchanged the worship of Jehovah for 
the worship of idols. Who thinks of blaming him in the 
latter case? Who could help charging the whole blame 
upon him in the other ? And is not the distinction just as 
obvious between the supposition that God is the immediate 
author of that sinful nature which all human beings develop, 
and the doctrine that that sinful nature is the result of their 
descent from ancestors who, created holy, voluntarily cor- 
rupted themselves, and, by a natural law of transmission, 
communicated that corruption to all their posterity ? It is 
one thing for God to create men with such a moral constitu- 
tion that they will certainly sin ; it is surely another thing 
to have permitted, for wise and holy purposes — for the dis- 
play of his glorious grace in human redemption, to have per- 
mitted the first parents of the race, whom he created in his 
own image, in knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness, to 
fall into transgression in the exercise of their own free will, 
and thus not to have interfered with the operation of the uni- 
versal law which assimilates the branches to the trunk, where- 
by their whole posterity were tainted with their sin original. 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 229 

V. Whathas just been said suggests one other point on which 
we desire to dwell a moment. We can have no rational 
view of the Bible doctrine of human depravity w^ithout 
admitting this moral connection between Adam and his 
great family. They who do not admit it, as before remark- 
ed, are shut up to this alternative — either to ascribe the 
natural depravity of men to God directly — or else deny the 
fact of their natural depravity. And because the former 
idea is too monstrous to be entertained a moment, the latter 
is universally adopted by all' those bodies of so-called Chris- 
tians, from the Pelagians of the fourth century to the So- 
cinians now, who assert that we are no way affected by the 
sin of Adam. They say we are not sinners by nature, but 
only by accident — from circumstances, from bad influences — 
that there is no such thing as a native propensity to evil in 
man, a sinful heart which is originally prone to go astray. 
We need not say how anti-scriptural is this. But we submit, 
it is just the logical and necessary consequence of denying 
the doctrine taught in the passage before us. For if you 
dare not ascribe this native depravity to God directly, and 
will not ascribe it to connection with the first man, what then 
remains ? Will you say this appalling effect is self-existent — 
that it has no cause at all ? This is flat absurdity. Nothing 
is left, then, but to deny it ; to assert that there is no such 
thing as native depravity — that our sinfulness is not radical 
but superficial, not the result of natural propensity but of 
accidental circumstances — that is, you must deny the Bible 
in its most fundamental doctrine of an original leprosy in 
man, which precludes all moral soundness, makes the whole 
head sick and the whole heart faint. No one can have just 
views of the grand remedial scheme of salvation, which is 
the controlling theme of the Bible, without admitting in its 
length and breadth the tremendous moral disease with which 
our nature is infected. And that can never be understood, 
or intelligently admitted, without subscribing to the doctrine 
of the apostle, who traces the origin of that dread malady 
back to Adam, and makes it natural, deep-seated, radical, by 
making it hereditary. 

The fact that the propensity to sin is natural, makes sin 
not the less sinful, nor its guilt less flagrant or less worthy 
of condemnation. Habit, it is said, is a second nature. 
And you can no doubt point to individuals who have allowed 
themselves in a particular bad habit, till it has become strong 

20 



230 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

and unconquerable as if it had been part of their original 
nature. But will you not tell them, Your indulgence of it 
to-day is just as criminal as your first indulgence of it ? And 
why? Because, in the one case as in the other, you can 
abstain fi'om it if you will ; and that is enough to leave you 
without excuse. Again, it has been observed that a specific 
evil propensity — lying, for instance, or grasping avarice — 
sometimes runs in families. You hear it said of a notorious 
falsifier, or a greedy miser, that, he came honestly, that is 
legitimately, by it. His father or his fathers were so before 
him. But is that any justification ? Is he not just as crimi- 
nal as if he w^ere the first liar or the first miser that ever ex- 
isted ? Would you not feel it so, and tell him so, when 
smarting from the effects of one of his falsehoods, or 
disgusted w^ith his pertinacious higgling for the last ^Denny? 
And wherefore ? Because you can restrain these propensi- 
ties if you will — and that is enough to leave you without ex- 
cuse. And this is precisely what we tell you in regard to 
all your sinful propensities. That which makes your every 
indulgence of them without excuse — no matter how you 
came by them — is that you might have restrained them if you 
w^ould. Your own consciousness tells you so. Your own 
conscience tells you so — has told you so every time it has 
stung you with the sense of guilt. For the sin which is in- 
voluntary, — if such were possible, — has no guilt. If you 
have ever felt the sense of the latter, it is proof from your 
own conscience that the former was voluntary — was the act 
of your own free will as much as Adam's in eating the for- 
bidden fruit. The fact that you have inherited from him 
propensities to evil, is no more reason why you should in- 
dulge them in doing evil, than the fact that one has inherited 
from his father certain casks of brandy, is a reason why he 
should besot himself into a brute by swallowing their con- 
tents. He might, if he chose, have staved in their heads and 
let the liquor run in the street the moment he came into 
possession of them. And so may, and so might you lay the 
axe of mortification at the root of every one of your native 
sinful propensities without ever once indulging them, if you 
only choose to do so. You are a sinner by your own choice 
— a sinner because you voluntarily preferred and prefer to 
be — and therefore as richly deserving the sentence of trans- 
gression as he who gave the first specimen of human trans- 
gression. The fact that you are an hereditary sinner no way 



KEV. WM. B. WEED. 231 

minislies your guilt, but it increases your danger, because this 
hereditary appetite, especially considering how long you 
have been indulging it, is the most difficult to overcome. 
And therefore, if you are sensible that you were shapen in 
iniquity, and in sin did your mother conceive you, — a sinner 
and a child of wrath by habit and by practice not only, but 
by nature too, — with all the more earnestness should your 
appeal go up to the Almighty Renovator, " Create in me a 
clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me." 



'^For as hy one manh disobedience many were made sinners, 
so by the obedience of one shall many be made riyhieous, — 
Rom. V. 19. 

A German theologian, a few years since, wrote a treatise 
to prove — or rather to assert, for of course on such a sub- 
ject any thing like logical proof was out of the question — 
that Jesus of I^azareth, who was born of the Virgin Mary, 
was crucified and rose again the third day, was nothing else 
but Adam. His theory is this : It was fit that he who first 
introduced moral disorder into the world should repair it. It 
was fit that he " whose disobedience brought death into the 
world, and all our woe," should make expiation for it. It 
were unjust that the righteous should sufifer for the wicked ; 
but perfectly just that the wicked Adam should sufifer for 
his own wickedness and its consequences. It were unjust 
that the innocent should be victimized for the guilty, but 
perfectly right that the guilty progenitor of the human race 
should be victimized in behalf of those whom his sin original 
involved in guilt and ruin. And therefore it was that the 
soul of Adam, which the Creator in the first instance jniracu- 
lously furnished with a body moulded from the dust of the 
earth, was, in the four thousand and fourth year of the world, 
no less miraculously clothed with another body in the womb 
of the Virgin, and brought a second time on the stage of 
life, and in due time subjected to capital punishment on the 
cross, to take away the sin of the world, of which he was 
the prime originator — to procure the restoration of the good- 
will of Heaven to men, which he had been the prime occasion 
of their forfeiting. Now we certainly do not mean to waste 



232 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

time in exposing the absurdity of this theory, which would 
require a new Bible to give it plausibility. Our Bible teaches 
that none but an innocent victim, " who knew no sin, neither 
was any guile found in his mouth," could make adequate ex- 
piation for the guilty ; and removes any color of injustice from 
that arrangement, by exhibiting that glorious victim as volun- 
tary as he was innocent — as far from meeting his fate with 
reluctance as he was from deserving it — led to the slaughter 
not only as spotless, but with as little disposition to resistance, 
as a lamb. But in the text the originator and the expiator 
of the sin of the world are brouQ^ht tog^ether not as one — not 
in the way of identification, but in the way of contrast, of 
parallel and mutual illustration. It would throw the whole 
gospel into inextricable confusion to confound Christ and 
Adam together — yet it is evidently the view of the apostle 
that the position and relations of the latter, with reference 
to the human family, afford important light by which to scan 
the remedial office-work of the former — by which to see, in 
an asj^ect of clearer consistency, the saving provisions of the 
gospel. 

. I. The disobedience of our first parents, referred to in the 
text, and recorded in the 3d of Genesis, though confined to a 
single act, and in itself a comparatively insignificant one, in- 
volved a violation of the w^hole moral law of God. As these 
discourses have grown out of our exposition of that passage, 
you will allow us here — for the sake of those who were not 
among our hearers in the lecture-room — to repeat what was 
there suggested as to the test of obedience imposed on our 
first progenitoi's. It was not one or any of the precepts of 
the moral law, because in their circumstances a violation of 
any of them was literally or morally impossible. The first 
man and the first woman, the only intelligent beings in the 
world, could neither dishonor their parents, nor commit 
adultei;}^ nor steal, nor bear false witness, nor covet. And it 
was, morally speaking, no less impossible that these holy 
beings should kill each other, or profane the name of God, 
or worship other gods before him. Besides, with their holy 
nature and unperverted conscience, they would have shrunk 
with horror from the thought of violating any one of the 
moral precepts of the decalogue, as being wrong, wicked, 
revolting in itself, aside from any divine command. Thus 
the fact that they abstained from transgressing these, would 
be no decisive test of obedience and loyalty to God. But 



EEV. WM. B. WEED. 233 

the prohibition to eat of the tree of knowledge was pre-emi- 
nently such a test, because, while its fruit was tempting to 
their natural sense and appetite, it was not wrong in itself to 
eat it — it was only wrong because God forbade it. If, there- 
fore, they abstained from it out of respect to the prohibition, 
and in spite of the temptation, it would clearly evince a spirit 
of unswerving love and loyalty to God. " I will not do what 
my father forbids, though there be no other reason." Now, 
on the other hand, it is evident that in yielding to the temp- 
tation in spite of the prohibition, though their guilty act was 
not a literal violation of any of the precepts of the moral 
law, it was in fact a jriolation of the whole of it. It was not 
a literal fracture of any of its branches, but it was a blow of 
violence aimed at its root. For the root, and sum, and com- 
prehension of all the law is, ''Thou shalt love the Lord thy 
God wdth all thy heart." Noav as long as the heart of Adam 
and his wife confessed the sway of that comprehensive pre- 
cept, it was impossible to touch the tree on which he had 
laid his interdict. Fly in the face of him whom they loved 
above all things ? They would as soon have gorged them- 
selves with night-shade berries. The passage of the forbid- 
den fruit down their throats w^as the token that the love of 
God had taken leave of their hearts — had given place to a 
guilty self-love, which was ready to trample the authority 
of Jehovah in the dust at the bidding of its owm selfish^ 
appetites. 

II. And this one transgression, as it was an implicit viola- 
tion of the whole law of God, it involved the entire corrup- 
tion of their whole moral nature. The measure of moral 
character is obedience to the divine law. Perfect obedience 
is perfect holiness. Sin is the transgression of the law. And 
in order to constitute a moral being an unmitigated sinner, 
without any remains of the opposite character, it is not ne- 
cessary that he commit a specific fracture of every one of its 
commands and precepts. Offending in one point, he is guilty 
of all. He who is capable of flouting and defying his Maker 
in one single forbidden act, is wholly destitute of the prin- 
ciple of love and loyalty to his Maker which the sum of the 
law requires — and this is to be wholly a sinner, totally de- 
praved. You do not wait for a man to steal, and cheat, and 
swindle, and forge, and counterfeit, and do a hundred other 
villanies, before you pronounce him destitute of moral cliar- 
acter according to the ordinary standard. You come to 

20* 



234 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

that conclusion as soon as you know him to have deliberately 
done one of these things. Even so, under the divine legal 
economy (for of course we here leave grace and its remedial 
provisions out of view), the first entrance of sin into the 
heart is the expulsion of the love of God, the triumph of 
corruption. So was it with Eve and Adam. The first en- 
trance of sin into their hearts was the funeral of moral virtue 
and the birth of a wholesale corruption. There are some 
substances of which a single grain dropped into a vase of 
distilled water will presently diifuse itself through the whole, 
darken, discolor, destroy the transparency of every particle 
of it. Even so the mortal taste of that forbidden tree, flout- 
ing and defying the whole authority of Jehovah, communi- 
cated its insidious pollution to all their moral system — made 
them as completely sinful as they before w^ere holy — as com- 
pletely alienated in heart from God as they were originally 
spotless in the loyalty of their devotion. 

III. Then came the operation of that universal law to 
which we adverted last Sabbath, which identifies the 
branches with the root, the fruit with the germ; which, 
throughout the whole range of creation, assimilates every 
existing organism with that from which it is begotten by 
ordinary generation; which identifies the child with his 
parent, in his temporal circumstances, in his social standing, 
and, above all, in his physical condition. Adam begot a son 
in his own image — not a brute, or an angel, but a human 
being in shape, in bodily organs, and intellectual faculties, 
because his parents Avere — not characterized by a brute-like 
destitution of moral elements, or by the elements of an an- 
gelic purity, but with a native bias to wrong rather than 
right, to evil rather than to good, because such was the fact 
with the parents who begat him. He yielded to that evil 
tendency which he might have repressed if he had chosen, and 
so became an actual trans2:ressor. And the whole natural 
progeny of Adam since have followed his example. Behold 
the meaning of — "by one man's disobedience many were 
made sinners." And in view of it, — 

We are now prepared to see what is and what is not 
meant by the concluding clause of the text, — " by the obedi- 
ence of one shall many be made righteous." 

I. Conceive our first parents, presently after the fall, had 
been able, by a process of self-regeneration, completely to 
rid themselves of that corruptive stain which their moral 



EEV. WM. B. WEED. 235 

nature had received from eating the forbidden fruit, and to 
purify that nature to its original whiteness, so that henceforth 
and always they should be as obedient, devoted, loyal to 
their Maker God as in the first day of their creation. Con- 
ceive, besides, that within a limited period they had been 
able to make a complete atonement to the divine law which 
they had violated, by paying its whole penalty, even to the 
uttermost farthing. What now would have been the result ? 
Obviously this : the whole effects of the fall would have been 
literally and completely obviated. Adam and Eve would 
have again become as pure, as holy, as faultless before God, 
as when he was produced from the virgin earth, and she 
from his opened side, by the hand of the Creator. Their 
offspring would have been begotten in their own likeness, 
with the natural bias and tendency to right in preference to 
w^'ong, to good instead of evil, which belonged to their pa- 
rents, and which would have bloomed and ripened in one 
and all in the visible manifestations and fruits of perfect ho- 
liness, and been perpetuated, we have reason to believe, to 
the present hour, making the whole world, in all its genera- 
tions, one immaculate Eden. 

II. Now this supposition, which were infinitely beyond 
the capacity of the first Adam, how far was it realized in fact 
by the second ? We answer, — 

1. He, no less than the former — he alone, except the for- 
mer — sustained a representative relation to the human race. 
No man, indeed, liveth to himself. No man ever lived whose 
influence was not felt, more or less extensively, by his con- 
temporaries or his posterity, or both. Christ and Adam 
alone are to the w^hole moral world what the mightiest of 
the celestial bodies is to the world of matter — reaching, af- 
fecting, influencing every part and particle of it. All men 
are affected morally by their relation to Adam because of 
their natural descent from him. All men are affected mor- 
ally by their relation to Christ because of the representative 
capacity which he was appointed to sustain to them. The 
Father sent his Son to be the Saviour of the wprld. He was 
born, he was given to us. His name is Immanuel, God with 
us — identified with us in nature and in every thing else which 
pertained to him, whether subjectively or objectively — ours 
in all that he was, and in all that he did, whether hving or 
dying. 

2. What, then, did he do in this representative capacity ? 



236 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

(1.) He perfectly obeyed the whole law of God. "I 
come," said he, " to do thy will, O God." This was no mere 
empty vaunt. In him and by him, for the first time since 
the fall, the will of God was done on earth, in all respects, 
as it is done in heaven. In him, for the first time since the 
fall, was seen a son of man of whom his friends not only 
could say that ^'he knew no sin," but who himself could 
fearlessly appeal to his enemies, " Which of you convinceth 
[that is convicteth] me of sin?" The heart of Adam was 
not more loyal to the will and statutes of Heaven, in the first 
hour after his creation, than was the heart of Jesus, every 
hour and every moment of his terrestrial existence. 

(2.) He bore what was equivalent to the full penalty of 
the law. "Christ hath once suffered for sins, the just for 
the unjust, being put to death in the flesh." "This is my 
blood which is shed for many for the remission of sins." 
That which is deserved by the unjust, the sinner, is the full 
infliction of the tremendous death-penalty of the divine law. 
If then that Just One suffered for the unjust, if his blood was 
adequate to procure the remission of their sins, then seeing 
such remission could take place only when the law was satis- 
fied in its penal demands, it follows that his suffering, his 
bloodshedding, must have fully answered its demands — must 
have been tantamount to the endurance of all its penalty. 

HI. Why then, it may be asked, should not the eflect of 
his atonement extend as far as the effects of Adam's trans- 
gression ? If by the disobedience of one man, many, all 
were made sinners, why by the obedience, the obedience 
unto death, of one greater man, should not many, all be made 
righteous ? He more than fulfilled what we have supposed 
in the case of Adam. He perfectly obeyed the law. He 
suffered its penal demands. And seeing that it was a man 
not only, but a God-man, that obeyed and suffered, his 
obedience and sufferings both had a measureless price and 
value — the one honoring and magnifying the law not less 
than the perfect obedience of the whole race for eternal 
ages could have done ; and the other vindicating it as com- 
pletely as the perfect misery of the whole race for eternal 
ages could have done. Why then should not the same re- 
sult ensue as on the aforesaid supposition ? If, as the repre- 
sentative and in behalf of the whole world, Christ has infi- 
nitely honored the divine law by his obedience, and infinitely 
vindicated by his sufferings, why should not the whole world 



REV. WM. B.* WEED. 237 

stand as completely justified in and through him, as through 
its original representative it became universally guilty? 
We answer, because of the existence of an organic connection 
between the representative and the race in the latter case, 
and the absence of it in the former. The disobedience of 
Adam affected all his posterity, because he was their father 
— because there was a natural, physical, organic relation be- 
tween him and them. For the same reason, if he could have be- 
come self-regenerated, and could have paid the full penalty of 
the law so as to have been restored to his original righteous- 
ness, that righteousness would as a matter of course, that is, 
as the spontaneous result of natural laws, have affected the 
moral status of all his posterity. But it is just here that the 
parallel between him and the second great representative 
man, of necessity fails. No such natural, physical, organic 
relation subsists between the second Adam and any human 
being. And therefore there behooves to be a special j)rocess 
of identification, instituted between him and them, or any 
of them, before his obedience and sufferings can be effectively 
available to them. Even as all the natural branches which 
grow from yonder trunk, as a matter of course partake of its 
nature, and life, and properties; but no such participation 
in its nature, and life, and properties belongs as a matter of 
course to the branches of another tree, though of the same 
kind. In order to this, they must be identified with it by a 
special grafting process. 

IV. What then is the process by which the sinner be- 
comes so identified with Christ as to be made righteous by 
his obedience? We answer, it is precisely that which is 
needful to institute any specific relation between two intelli- 
gent beings, where no such relation existed originally. It is 
mutual consent. You are the natural guardian of that child 
of yours. It needed no process, no transaction, legal or 
otherwise, to secure to you all the rights and all the author- 
ity, and to him all the claims, which belong to guardian and 
ward, because that relation is a natural incident and offshoot 
of your parental relation. But suppose you die. The child 
is under age, and must have a guardian. How shall he come 
by him? Just thus: somebody must consent to be his 
guardian, and he must consent to have him. There must be 
a specific transaction of this kind in order to constitute this 
relation between him and one who has no natural right or 
capacity to sustain it. So as to husband and wife. So as to 



238 SERMONS 'BY THE LATE 

foreign-born citizens and government. So as to magistrate 
and people. Mutual consent is indispensable in every case to 
constitute between two parties a relation which did not 
originally and naturally belong to them. Now God, who 
will, that is who is willing, that all men should be saved, 
hath sent his Son to be the Saviour of the world, and to taste 
death for every man. And none can doubt that his willing- 
ness to sustain this saving relation is no less large and liberal, 
as little restricted by the impulses of his own generous heart, 
as it was by the commission which his Father gave him. I 
will give you rest, all ye that labor and travail under sin's 
burden — only come to me. Compelling none, but welcom- 
ing, yea, soliciting all — such is his position. Here, then, is a 
universal offer of himself by Christ to be a universal Saviour 
— a full consent on his part to enter into the saving relation 
with every lost child of Adam. Now, so far as that consent 
is mutual, this relation is actually consummated. ^ "To as 
many as received him, to them gave (and gives) he power 
that they should be called the sons of God, even to as many 
as believe on his name." This is their consent. I believe 
with all my heart that Jesus Christ is all that the gospel 
represents him — the Son of God, the Saviour and Lord 
of all. As such I receive him. I rest my guilty soul on his 
atoning righteousness. I yield my soul and body to his 
reasonable service. To love him, to keep his command- 
ments, to count all things but loss for the excellence of his 
knowledge and the furtherance of his glory, shall be the 
whole drift and aim of my being, now and forever. Say you 
so — from the heart ? Why then the great transaction's 
done. Thou art all Christ's and he all thine. His obedience 
unto death imputed through your faith shall, as truly as if 
it were your own, make you legally righteous, absolved from 
guilt before God. His obedience unto death shall purchase 
for thee the sanctifying grace and Spirit which, made availa- 
ble through faith, will make thee personally righteous — not 
perfectly at once, but daily more and more so — till all the 
effects of the fall are effaced from thee, and you made as 
spotless and as fit for paradise as Adam before he tasted the 
forbidden fruit. 

I. Men have no right to complain of the unfavorable effect 
of the sin of Adam on the circumstances in which they com- 
mence their moral existence, especially in view of the reme- 
dial provisions that are made in Christ. It is quite possible, 



KEY. WM. B. WEED. 239 

after listening to our discourse last Sabbath, and to tlie fii-st 
part of this, some may conceive they were hardly dealt by 
in the di\dne arrangement which has identified them with 
their first parent. Why did not God prevent the transmis- 
sion of that wrong bias which, in point of fact, has made us 
all sinners, and leave us to be born into the world with at 
least an equal tendency to good as to evil ? Well, we will 
answer this question when you tell us why he does not work 
miracles, and suspend the operation of natural laws, in order 
to prevent the disastrous effects which flow from them in 
other cases — yea, in cases where the same relation of parent 
and child is concerned. Yonder are two young specimens 
of humanity — the one robust and stalwart, a fair candidate 
for eighty years, — the other feeble, shrunken, fragile as a 
broken reed, evidently marked' for an early grave. What 
makes the difference ? Ask the physician, or look at their 
parents. Each is the image of his own ; each, by a perfectly 
natural process, has inherited the physical constitution of his 
parents. Why did not God counteract that process in the 
case of the latter, and permit him to come into the world 
with as favorable, lifeful prospects as the other? Again, 
here is a youth who commences life with an estate of thou- 
sands, with a thorough education, with a cordial welcome to 
the partial estimation of the public, — all owing to the wealth, 
to the careful provision, to the sterling virtues of his father. 
There is another who commences life without a cent of prop- 
erty, without the knowledge of the alphabet, and under a 
cloud of pubhc depreciation, — all owing to the poverty, to 
the unfaithfulness, to the villanies of his father. Will you 
tell me why, in the case of the latter youth, God did not 
counteract these transmissive tendencies, and give him as fair 
a start in the world as the other ? Then will I tell you the 
whole why and Avherefore God permits us, as the result of a 
natural law of transmission, to come into the world less fa- 
vorably circumstanced, in a moral point of view, than it is 
conceivable we might have been — than it is conceivable is 
true of the inhabitants of other worlds. If the individuals 
aforesaid should complain of their allotment, you would think 
it enough to tell them they had no right to find fiult with 
the order of Providence, with the arrangements of a Sove- 
reign God. And is not this enough to stop your mouth in 
view of the arrangement indicated in the first clause of the 
text? But this is not all. Look at the other— "By the 



240 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

obedience of one shall many be made righteous." Conceive, 
no sooner is that hereditary invalid capable of an intelligent 
choice, than God sends him an infallible physician of his own 
providing, who ofiers to make him sound and hale and 
strong as a giant, if he will only consent to it. Is not all 
shadow of pretext for complaint as to his original allotment 
removed now ? Conceive that to that child of poverty, and 
ignorance, and shame, a God-commissioned agent, of super- 
natural powers and resources, presents himself, offering to 
place him in all respects on a level with the most favored 
child of fortune, if he will only consent to it. Is not all 
shadow of pretext for complaint as to his original allotment 
precluded now ? And God has permitted you, in virtue of 
a natural law of descent, to be involved in the effects of your 
first father's fall. You have "inherited from him a tendency 
to evil. You have voluntarily carried it out in actual trans- 
gression, corrupted your nature, earned you a place among 
the disgraced outcasts of the divine kingdom. Behold the 
mighty Agent of God's appointing, almighty in power, infi- 
nite in resources, who comes to counteract all this — to make 
your corrupted moral nature hale and sound, and your moral 
standing in the universe of God as high, as glorious (yea, 
even more so) as unfallen Adam's or an unfallen angel's, if 
you only consent to it. Does not that suffice ? Does it not, 
dear brother, who have thus consented, who have received 
him, and with him received the power to be called a son of 
God ? Have you not, long since, got over the disposition — 
supposing that you ever felt it — to complain of the results of 
your relation to him of Eden, who begot you from his loins 
and tainted you by his sin, while wondering, rejoicing, glo- 
rying in the results of your relation to him of Calvary, who 
begot you again unto life eternal by his death, justified you 
by kis righteousness, and sanctifieth you by his grace ? Be 
it that you commenced your moral existence under less fa- 
vorable circumstances than the angels or than Adam did, in 
consequence of your descent from that primeval sinner, — is 
it not enough to reconcile you to this, to think that the 
grace of God has placed you under a better covenant than 
either, and placed you above either in dignity, in security, 
in happiness, in consequence of your faith — constituted iden- 
tification with Christ the Lord your righteousness, of whose 
glory you are to share, in whose exaltation you are to par- 
take, in whose throne you are to sit for ever and ever ! 



KEY. \VM. B. AVEED. 241 

II. And what is true of one, of some, may he true of all. 
No limited atonement in the gospel, and no XJniversalism. 
Christ consents to be a Saviour to you alL He can be an 
actual Saviour only to those who consent to have him. 
Dost thou consent ? Heaven, hell is waiting for your deci- 
sion, which may give the one a trophy or the other a victim. 
Lost and ruined by a process begun by the disobedience of 
Adam and completed by thy ovv^n, say, wilt thou imite thy 
fates and fortunes to the great Restorer, embracing his cross, 
bowing to his sceptre as thy Saviour and thy Lord ? Why 
then, nor now, nor ever, shalt thou have cause to regret the 
day when the serpent tempted, and Adam yielded, and sin 
was born ? It will be better for thee, yes, better (such are 
the wonderful provisions of God's grace), than if no such day 
was marked in the calendar of time. If ever thou enviest 
the rapt seraph that was born amidst the purities of heaven 
and never knew sin nor its offspring evils, that seraph one 
day shall have no less cause to envy thee, when he sees thee 
shining in the diadem of God Immanuel, helping to form the 
halo of his transcendent glory^ — sees thee confessed of him, 
the pride and paragon of heaven, as his heart's owm brother, 
and hears thee rapturously strike into that redemption song 
of Moses and the Lamb which he can neither learn nor sing. 



■» * » 



^'But we are bound to give thanks alvmys to God for you^ 
brethren^ beloved of the Lord^ because God hath from the begin- 
ning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit 
and. belief of the truths — 2 Thess. ii. 13. 

We have said that sufficient reasons for the pulpit discus- 
sion of such texts as, " By one man sin entered into the 
world," " By one man's disobedience many were made sin- 
ners," &c., might be found in the fact that they are an inte- 
gral portion of the Bible, and we have no more authority to 
banish parts of the word of God from the pulpit than thus 
to banish the whole of it ; and besides, they afford the only 
intelligible explanation of one of the most astonishing phe- 
nomena which this world exhibits — and which, w^e confidently 

21 



212 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

trust, is without a parallel in any other — the highest in rank, 
the most perfect in faculties of all the races of creatures with 
which the Almighty has stocked this planet — the empire race 
of earth's inhabitants, in all its ages, nations, families, indi- 
viduals, from the first moment that their capacities are suffi- 
ciently developed to do so — running up the rebel flag against 
their Maker — enlisting all the powers of their being the first 
moment they are capable of exertion, to fight the glorious 
Author of their being. Surely it cannot be uninteresting to 
know how, why, and by what original cause or means a state 
of things so strange and monstrous came to pass. But there 
is another phenomenon stranger than this, and that is the 
reverse of it — the born enemy of God surrendering the hered- 
itary lover of whatsoever things are impure, unholy, and of 
ill repute, forsaking them, changing the whole moral current 
of his life to a direction just the opposite of that it had run 
ever since it began to flow — the native sinner turning holy. 
He who had never looked on death could find no visible 
sight that would so fix his attention and aflect his mind as a 
living man expiring into a corpse — save one — to see that 
corpse reviving into a living man. Even so, he who had 
never looked on sin could find no fellow to the moral spec- 
tacle of a living soul subsiding into the darkness of moral 
death — as when Adam fell — except in the converse spectacle 
of a soul emerging from the darkness of death, from the dis- 
mal depths of a spiritual entombment, and burning a bright 
and living satellite of the Lord God, who is a Sun. Behold 
the sufficient reasons for the pulpit discussion of such texts 
as we have just read to you — because they are Scripture, 
and therefore must^be profitable — and because they are obvi- 
ously so in the specific sense of directing us to the original 
cause or means of the most astonishing fact which the world 
presents — the child of wrath from his birth, transformed into 
an heir of heaven — the all-corrupted scion of apostate Adam 
changed into a plsmt of paradise. 

I. The ultimate reason why any of the human race are 
delivered out of their original state of sin and misery, and 
brought into a state of salvation, is the sovereign will of 
God choosing, electing, predestinating them from all eter- 
nity to be heirs of grace. There is no truth more firmly 
pillared in the records of inspiration than this. The word 
"justification" — the exponent of the great corner-stone doc- 
trine of the gospel system, the denial of which would leave 



KEY. WM. B. WEED. 243 

Christianity a mere soulless scheme of baptized deism — the 
word "justification" does not occur more frequently in the 
New Testament than the word " election" and its synonyms, 
"predestination," and the like. "According," says the 
apostle to the Ephesians (i. 4), "as he hath chosen us in 
him before the foundation of the world" — that is, before the 
creation — before the clock of time began to run — from eter- 
nity. And in the 11th verse — "In whom also we have ob- 
tained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the 
purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of 
his own will," And to the Thessalonians (ii. 13) — "But we 
are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren, 
beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning 
chosen you to salvation." And observe the address of Peter 
(1st epistle) to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, 
Galatia, &c. — "Elect (chosen, predestinated,) according to 
the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification 
of the Spirit," &c. Is not the fact we have announced — the 
sovereign and eternal choice of God as the ultimate ground 
of the salvation of every individual sinner who is rescued 
from the sinner's doom — as clearly taught here as words can 
express it? How then do they Avho deny this doctrine at- 
tempt to evade the force of these quotations ? Thus : They 
direct our attention to the fact that the apostle, in each of the 
aforesaid passages, is addressing, not individuals, but a whole 
church in its collective capacity. Now it is not to be sup- 
j)osed that all the members of the Ephesian church (for ex- 
ample) were genuine heirs of salvation. It is beyond reason- 
able question that there were some goats in that flock of 
sheep, whom the Lord Jesus will put on his left hand at the 
last day, saying, " I never knew you." But he calls them 
all chosen, predestinated. Therefore seeing it is not to be 
imagined they were all true children of God, or that they 
would all be ultimately saved, the terms in question cannot 
be intended to assert their individual adoption, or their in- 
dividual salvation, because that would be to assert a false- 
hood. All that can be meant is that they were chosen, ap- 
pointed, as a collective body, to the enjoyment of peculiar 
privileges, gospel truths, and gospel institutions, by a due 
improvement of which they might work out their salvation 
— just as God calls his ancient Israel his elect — "The Lord 
thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto him- 
self" — chosen them as a nation — that is, to the enjoyment of 



2M SERMONS BY THE LATE 

peculiar national immunities— just as in a similar sense he 
hath chosen this favored nation of ours. 

1. Now on precisely the same ground that it is denied 
there is any such thing as individual election in the passages 
just quoted, it may be shown that there was not a single re- 
genei-ate person — not a single genuine church member in 
any of these churches. For look at the superscription of these 
same epistles — " To the church of God which is at Corinth" 
— '' to tlie saints and faithful brethren in Christ which are at 
Colosse" — "to the strangers" (that is, Jevvish Christians,) 
" in Pontus, Galatia," &c. — " to the elect," &>c. The whole 
body of visible Christians in Corinth are called the church 
of God. The whole body of visible Christians in Colosse 
are called saints and fxithful brethren. The whole body of 
visible Christians in Pontus, Galatia, &c., are called elect. 
'Now mark you, that just so many of each of these bodies of 
visible Christians as were not individual heirs of salvation, 
were not faithful brethren, nor saints — that is, regenerate 
persons — nor true members of the Church of God. If, then, 
the apostles cannot mean to say that they were individually 
elected to salvation, because it is next to certain that some 
of them were not in a state of salvation, then neither can he 
mean to sav that anv of them were faithful brethren, or 
saints, or true members of the Church of God; and these 
terms must be tortured into some other meaning, because it 
is just as certain that some of them were neither. And then 
the question would arise, which the apostle really means to 
call them, or whetlier, like Talleyrand, he held the use of 
language to be — not to express ideas, but to conceal them. 
Let us employ a little common sense to clear up this fog. 
We often address the collective members of this church as 
brethren and sisters in Christ. What then? Do we mean 
nothing by it, or something different from what the words 
import, because it is possible or probable that some of you 
are not true Christians, and therefore not entitled to these 
appellations? Not at all. We mean just what we say. We 
proceed upon the gi'ound of your own profession. You all 
profess to be true disciples of Christ. If so, then it is fit to 
call you all brethren and sisters in Christ. Precisely so the 
apostle, in addressing the Corinthian and Ephesian churches, 
proceeded on the ground of their i3rofession. The inspira- 
tion of the apostles did not disclose to them the hearts of 
men. They were liable to mistake their character. They 



KEV. WM. B. WEED. 245 

did mistake it in the case of Simon, and of Ananias and his 
wife. But all this ecclesiastical brotherhood at Ephesus and 
Corinth, &c., professed to be true disciples of Chiist. If so, 
then they were true members of the Church of God, and 
therefore the apostle calls them so. If so, then they were 
saints — regenerate, and fiithful — that is, believing brethren 
— and therefore the apostle calls them so. Precisely on the 
same ground, if he believed that all true Christians are in- 
dividually chosen, elected, predestinated to salvation, he would 
not hesitate to call them all thus chosen, thus elected, thus 
predestinated, because they all professed to be true Chris- 
tians. So much for the plea that the apostle cannot intend 
to assert the individual personal election of the members of 
those ecclesiastical flocks, because they most probably had 
some black sheep among them. 

2. The national election of ancient Israel, which is offered 
to sustain the objection against the doctrine of an individual 
personal election, as taught in the aforesaid texts, is nothing 
but a broken reed. It cannot sustain it a moment. We 
grant that when it is said, as in the 135th Psalm, " The Lord 
hath chosen Jacob unto himself, and Israel for his peculiar 
treasure," all that is meant is simply a general choosing or 
electing that nation from the other political societies of the 
world, to peculiar national privileges, spiritual and temporal ; 
and that no reference is had to the individuals who composed 
it, — any of whom might — as many of them did — forfeit all 
part and lot in these privileges. But, mark you, there is 
here a wheel within a wheel. Within this providential elec- 
tion there was an election of grace. Saith the apostle, in 
Romans ix. 27, "Though the number of the children of 
Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved." 
Paul, in Romans xi. 4, after quoting the averment of God to 
his desponding prophet, " I have reserved to myself seven 
thousand men who have not bowed the knee to the image 
of Baal," adds, " Even so at this present time also, there is a 
remnant according to the election of grace." And again, 
"Israel hath not obtained that w^hich he seeketh for, but the 
election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded." Israel 
as a nation have not obtained the salvation that they sought 
for throuo;h their own obedience ; but the election — that is, 
the elect ones among them — have obtained it through 
Christ. Thus, then, within the wholesale, national election 
of Israel to pecuUar privileges which might be abused and 

21* 



246 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

forfeited, there was an election of grace including a remnant, 
a small portion of the individuals of that nation, who should 
be saved. Thus is made apparent the distinction between 
the national election of Israel and gospel election, and the 
inadmissibility of arguing from the one to the other, — in 
that Israel herself exhibited a specimen of the latter side by 
side with her national election, and broadly discriminated 
from it as including only the individuals of her several tribes 
who should be actually saved — who were chosen to salva- 
tion. Hence I observe, — 

3. The passages before quoted, in which whole churches 
in the gross are called elect, predestinated, &c., are by no 
means the only ones in which this doctrine is embodied. 
There are others in which the personal election of individu- 
als is so obviously asserted or implied as to preclude all 
question on the subject. "I speak not of you all," says 
Christ to his disciples, John xiii. 18 — "I speak not of you 
all. I know whom I have chosen." What is the meaning 
of this word " chosen'''' ? He had chosen them all as his 
apostles, and they had all hitherto discharged this vocation. 
He here obviously refers to that choice, selection, or election 
which related to their membership in his spiritual family and 
their place in his book of life — a choice, an election which 
excluded Judas and was confined to the other eleven. So 
when he predicts that, in the days preceding the fall of Jeru- 
salem, false Christs and false prophets should arise to deceive 
if it were possible the very elect, and that for the elect's sake 
those days shall be shortened in order not to subject their 
faith to such a length of trial as might prove destructive, it 
is obvious that by the elect are intended no organic associa- 
tion of any description, but that, just as when you speak of 
the rich or the poor, the learned or the ignorant in a given 
community, you mean the individuals in that community 
who are rich or poor, or wise or ignorant, so by the elect 
the Saviour means the individuals of that eventful period 
whom God had elected, chosen unto salvation — whom, 
therefore, it was not possible for false prophets to fatally de- 
ceive, and in whose behalf events must be so ordered as not 
to jeopardize their salvation. Again, in Acts xiii. 48 we are 
told, at the conclusion of Paul's sermon at Antioch, that 
" when the Gentiles heard this they were glad, and glorified 
the word of the Lord ; and as many" — that is, as many in- 
dividual men and women among them — " as were ordained" 



KEV. WM. B. WEED. 247 

— not to the enjoyment of gospel i^rivileges and institutions 
— " as many as were ordained unto eternal life, believed." 
And finally, says Paul in Romans viii. 28-30; "We know 
that all things work together for good to them that love 
God — to them who are the called according to his purpose. 
For whom he did foreknoAV he also did predestinate to be con- 
formed to the image of his Son — moreover whom he did pre- 
destinate them he also called, and whom he called them he 
also justified, and whom he justified them he also glorified ;" 
the apostle does not think it worth while to change the tense 
of the last verb, because, though the glorification might be 
future, it is just as certain as if it had already taken place. 
See now how, as inseparably as the topmost branch of a 
tree is connected with the trunk, the glorification of these 
people is connected with their predestination or election. 
Whom — all of whom he glorified, he justified and called 
not only, but predestinated, predestinated them as certainly 
as he called them by his Spirit, or justified by his grace. Is 
it not clear as noon that, if the obvious meaning of this text 
is to be admitted, every human being who is called and justi- 
fied on earth or glorified in heaven was predestinated — ap- 
pointed, elected, chosen to that destiny in the purpose of 
God? 

II. That the ultimate reason why any of the human race 
are saved, lies in the sovereign purpose and election of God, 
may be argued from his eternal foreknowledge who should 
and who should not be saved. For how could he eternally 
know who were to be heirs of salvation, unless he eternally 
purposed to make them so ? — which is all that is meant by 
election. 

1. If God is omniscient — if all things, past, present, and to 
come, are naked and open to his eye — then all the incidents of 
the human family, — their number and their names who are 
to stand with the Lamb upon Mount Zion and make heaven 
ring with their songs of salvation — are, and must always 
have been naked and open to his eye. Is there any way to 
deny this ? There is, and we will give it to you as perhaps 
the very worst specimen of logic that ever was begotten by 
a human brain. God, it is said, is omnipotent — that is, he 
can do all things possible. But he does not. He can fill the 
sky wdth twice as many globes as he actually has ; but he 
does not because, he does not choose to. His omnipotence 
is limited by his choice, or will. I^ow, w^hy may not his 



248 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

omniscience be limited in the same way ? He can know all 
things ; he can know Avho shall be saved, but he may not choose 
to. Now first observe the etymological blander involved in 
this argument. Omnipotence means the power to do all 
things. Of course God may possess it without actually doing 
all things. But omniscience does not mean the power to 
know all thinors. It means the actual knowledsfe of all 
things. Of course God cannot possess it — cannot be omni- 
scient — if any one thing that ever has or ever is to come to 
pass, is or was ever unknown to him. As to the notion that 
God may not know certain things, may not know beforehand 
w^hether that particular individual is to be saved or not, be- 
cause he does not choose to know — we pray you observe, it 
is not more certain that neither God or man ever made a 
choice wdthout having two objects to choose between, than 
that both these objects must be before the mind at the time 
the choice is made. Now in the present instance, the tw^o 
objects are the knowing and the not knowing beforehand 
whether Paul, for instance, would be saved or not. There- 
fore, in order to choose the latter, God must have had both 
before his mind — the knowledge and the non-knowledge of 
the fact in question. But to have the knowledge of the fact 
before his mind, is the same as to have the fact itself before 
his mind. That is, he must have known beforehand whether 
Paul would be saved or not, in order to determine not to 
know it. So perish all reasoning that contradicts the Bible. 
The Lord knoweth them that are his. He foreknew all 
whom he glorified. That is, he knew beforehand all who 
were to attain to heaven's glory. 

2. But how could he possibly know this beforehand — ex- 
cept because he had determined they should ? Conceive a 
finite being, the day Adam fell, had been furnished wdth a 
list of the whole family that should spring from his loins, 
and had undertaken to prognosticate which of them W'as 
heaven-destined and hell-doomed ; would that prognostication 
have been any thing else but a mass of blunders ? If God knew 
beforehand, with absolute certainty, who of all these milhons 
of millions would take the strait and narrow way, and who 
the other, it could only have been because he had the power, 
and determined to exert it, to make it certain. Whoever, 
therefore, believes in God's foreknowledge on this sub- 
ject, must believe in election. The former is impossible 
without the latter. 



EEY. WM. B. WEED. 249 

III. The mode in which, according to Scripture, all who 
are saved at all are brought into a state of salvation, is a 
conclusive argument for the doctrine in question — that all 
such are eternally chosen of God unto eternal life. 

1. For what is their moral status when the power of 
salvation commences with them ? " Dead in trespasses and 
sins," destitute of moral goodness and spiritual life. And 
how is that destitution obviated ? " God who is rich in 
mercy, even when we were dead in sin, hath quickened us 
together with Christ." " Except a man be born again, he 
cannot see the kingdom of God." No salvation for the un- 
regenerate. And how is he born again ? By water and 
the Spirit. And why is he thus born again ? Why, those 
who have " power to be called the sons of God," are born 
unto this filial relation, "not of blood, nor of the will of 
man, but of God." God's will is the original and only reason 
why they are born again. " All that the Father hath given 
me, shall come unto me" — all whose salvation was to be 
secured by his death ; — but " No man can come unto me, 
except the Father, which hath sent me, draw him." But we 
need not multiply examples. There is no Bible truth more 
clear and unquestionable than that the process by which the 
born child of depravity casts off the slough of sin and 
assumes the garments of holiness, originates in the will, and 
is efficiently performed by the power and the Spirit of 
God. 

2. But now the question is, did God ever do any act 
whatever without a previous purpose or intention ? Did he 
ever quicken a dead soul without previously intending to do 
it ? Did he ever will that an altogether sinful soul should 
be born of the Spirit into his own holy family, without pre- 
viously intending to do it ? Did he ever draw an unwilling 
soul to Christ without a previous purpose or intention to 
that effect ? It is the idiot and the crazed, not a man in his 
senses, much less a perfect God — who does things without 
meaning or intending it. 

3. But God has no purpose younger than himself. We 
finite creatures daily form new plans and purposes in view of 
new facts. But because with the omniscient God there are, 
and can be, no new facts, he has no occasion to form new pur- 
poses, but declares the end from the beginning, and from an- 
cient times the things which are not yet done, saying, "My 
counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure." What 



250 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

then ? If all who are entitled to be called sons of God and 
heirs of heaven are quickened by him from spiritual death, 
born again by his will, and drawn to Christ by his grace and 
Spirit, he must have eternally intended to exert these saving 
influences, and do those saving acts on them and by them ; 
which is the same as to say that he eternally intended and 
purposed to make them heirs of salvation — which is the doc- 
trine of election, which is the express teaching of Paul in 
Ephesians i. 3 : ''Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, w^ho hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings," 
the blessing of his quickening Spirit, his renewing and sancti- 
fying grace, " according as he hath chosen us in him before 
the foundation of the world." In view of these things, — 

I. You may learn to estimate the sorry evasion of this doc- 
trine, which asserts that God foresaw that Paul and Peter and 
other saints would comply with the conditions of salvation, 
— would repent, would believe in the Lord Jesus Christ — and 
therefore, in view and because of this foreseen faith, and re- 
pentance, and holiness, he chose them to be heirs of salvation 
— and that this is all the election there is in the Bible ! Just 
as a wealthy but childless person — if we suppose him to have 
the gift of superhuman foresight — would decide to give his 
property to the heir, or heirs, who, he foresaw, would on the 
whole prove most worthy of it. ISToav this is utterly incon- 
sistent with Scrii^ture facts. Why did God foresee that a 
given human being would perform the conditions of salva- 
tion ? Why, saith the Bible, because he determined to give 
him the moral ability to do so. " By grace are ye saved 
through faith, and that not of yourself; it is the gift of 
God." Faith is expressly enumerated in Galatians v. 22, 
among the fruits of the Spirit — the effect of the new birth 
— which itself, according to John, is an effort of the will of 
God. And repentance — saith not Peter, " Him hath God 
exalted to give repentance"? Said not the apostolic church 
at Jerusalem when they heard of the conversion of Cornelius, 
"Thus hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance 
unto life " ? And said not Paul to Timothy, " In meek- 
ness instructing those that oppose themselves, if God perad- 
venture will give them repentance unto the acknowledg- 
ment of the truth" ? A comfortable dwelHng-house is for 
sale at a certain price. A man of wealth and liberality ac- 
costs a poor, homeless creature, without money or credit, and 
tells him, "I have determined that you shall have that dwel- 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 251 

ling," and then counts out to him the price demanded, and 
tells him to go and buy it ; that is, he has determined that 
he shall have it, and therefore gives him the means to pur- 
chase it. Now if some person giving an account of that 
affair should say that the wealthy benelactor determined that 
the other should have that dweliino; because he foresaw that 
the latter, the penniless, would be able to pay for it out of 
his own pocket — it would be just as true and just as false as 
when it is asserted that God determined to write the name 
of this or that man in his book of life, because he foresaw that 
he would repent and believe in Christ. It is just the other 
way. He determined on his salvation, and therefore gave 
him — what he never would have had himself — the faith, the 
repentance, which are the conditions of salvation. God did 
not choose Paul and his fellows-saints into his family because 
he foresaw that they would be holy — no, but says Paul him- 
self, " He hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the 
world, that we should be holy and without blame before him 
in love." The good qualities they developed — the holiness, 
the blamelessness, are not the motive or the reason of that 
choice, but the object of it and the effect of it. The choice, 
the electing purpose is before all — and the faith, the repent- 
ance, and the holiness, are the results of that electing pur- 
pose, and the means of carrying it into effect. 

n. No doctrine has been more shamefully misrepresented or 
more flagrantly abused, — been exhibited more frequently as 
the very caricature of itself, or been made more frequently a 
savor of death unto death, than that we have now insisted 
on. Our principal object in introducing it is to vindicate it 
from these misrepresentations and perversions ; but this must 
be reserved for a future occasion. As to the truth of the 
doctrine itself — aside from the Scripture arguments we have 
offered — we confidently appeal to any experimental Christian 
here. It is just as impossible for a Christian to give a com- 
plete history of his religious experience without bringing in 
the doctrine of election, as to give a complete history of the 
United States without bringing in the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence. Time was, dear brother, when to love God — the 
holy, the hater of sin, the damner of sinners, — to weep like 
a child because you had offended him — to receive, like a beg- 
gar, in gratitude and faith the offered suretyship and right- 
eousness of his redeeming Son — was no less impossible to you 
— not indeed in kind, but in degree — than to turn that ocean 



252 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

into dry land, or the dry land to ocean. But God, — the holy 
and the sin-hating — you love him now, and to remember that 
you had sinned against heaven and in his sight, can bring the 
tears of sorrow to your eyes as naturally as the rain-drops 
fall fi-om April skies. And that Saviour is precious to you — 
oh, how precious — on whom your fiiith reposes in full confi- 
dence that he hath borne your sins in his own body on the 
tree. Now tell us why the love, the repentance, the faith, 
that were once imjDossible to you are now the contrary. Can 
you give but one answer ? It was grace — God's sovereign 
grace took me in hand — begot me again from the dead, 
made me a new creature, gave me a new heart, susceptible 
of right affections towards my God and Saviour. And why 
did he do this for you, but because he chose to from all eter- 
nity ? And this is election. You may deny the word, but 
it is vain to deny the thing. You are a living proof of it. 
You are bound to give thanks always to God for yourself, 
'' because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salva- 
tion through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the 
truth." 



*' God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through 
sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth : whereunto he 
called you by our gospel, to the obtaininjg of the glory of our Lord 
Jesus Christ:' — 2 Thess. ii. 13, 14. 

There is a class of the celestial bodies — of which we had 
a magnificent specimen, outshining the evening star in our 
twili2:ht firmament last autumn — that used to be reo^arded 

O CD 

as a sort of wild and lawless bravos of the sky, difieringfrom 
all the heavenly host besides, in that while the latter are our 
benefactors, genial radiators of light and heat, the former 
are looked upon as the fell enemies of man — looking blood 
and carnage from their lurid eye, and shaking the pestilence 
from their horrid hair. Four centuries ago the appearance 
of one of them coursing: alons: the sisfns of heaven, threw 
nations into a panic, made monarchs sit unquiet on then- 
thrones, and popes betake themselves to their spiritual wea- 
pons, their anathemas, their curses, to repel, if it might be, 
the terrible invader. Now how comes it to pass that the 



KEV. WM. B. WEEP. 253 

word "comet" conveys no such terrible associations to our 
minds ; and that the sight of one, instead of putting our 
nerves in a tremor, only awakens a certain pleasurable curi- 
osity? Just for this reason, — that science and experience 
have demonstrated that all the terrible associations that once 
were connected with them are wholly groundless ; that they 
are as truly members of our solar system as the planets are, 
differing from them only in the incidents of external appear- 
ance and peculiar shape of orbit, but essentially identified 
Avith them as subject to the same laws and physical condi- 
tions ; and that in point of fact, they are just as harmless, and 
have, while visible, the same relation to us as light-bearers, 
as Mars or Jupiter. 

Now what the comet once was in the natural firmament, even 
such has been the doctrine of election in the firmament of di- 
vine truth. By many it has been and is regarded as the very 
bug bear of theology. " Dreadful," '^ horrid," " shocking," 
— such are some of the epithets which have been applied to 
it. It has been represented as the fell enemy of both man 
and God, stripping the latter of the brightest glories of his 
character, and robbing the former of their salvation, and 
murdering their souls. Xow we verily believe these notions 
to be as groundless as those which an ignorant antiquity as- 
sociated with comets. It is our aim in these discourses to 
prove it — to show that there is nothing in this doctrine un- 
worthy of God (this we endeavored to do last Sabbath), that 
it is in perfect harmony with the system of his revealed truth, 
as little calculated to prove a savor of death, and as well cal- 
culated to prove a savor of life, as any doctrine of the 
Bible. In these latter points behold our present subject — 
the relations of this doctrine to human efforts and human 
salvation. 

I. The fact that God from all eternity determined to secure 
the salvation of a part of the human race, is no bar, no dis- 
suasive, but a direct motive and special encouragement to 
earnest effort to promote the salvation of man. If, says one, 
I believed in election, I should think it utterly needless to 
preach another sermorf calling sinners to repentance. For 
if God has taken the thing into his own hand, and infallibly 
determined from the first who shall be saved, all human in- 
terference in the matter must be not only superfluous, but 
presumptuous. Now we confidently assert that a more un- 
scriptural sentiment, or one more flagrantly in violation of the 

22 



254: SEKMONS BY THE LATE 

dictates of common sense, was never uttered. Behold the 
proof, and judge. 

1. The purposes or decrees of God, as regards the mode 
in which they are made practically operative, divide them- 
selves into two classes — those which are executed by nothing 
else but the same omnipotent will of his which originated 
them, and those which are carried into effect through human 
agencies. You will find a specimen of both in the last verse 
of the 8th of Genesis : " While the earth remaineth, seed- 
time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, 
and day and night, shall not cease." We fix on the first and 
last of these couplets. God announces his purpose or decree 
that day and night, and that seed-time and harvest, shall 
never cease while the world standeth. Now how do we get 
the benefit of that sovereign '' shall " in the former case ? 
How is the succession of day and night secured to us ? Why, 
by the immediate power of God, causing the earth to rotate 
on its axis so as to make the sun alternately visible and in- 
visible to every part of it in succession. This is God's Avill ; 
and we have nothing to do with it except to share the advan- 
tage of it. But how is it with seed-time and harvest ? Is 
that all God's work too ; and have we nothing to do with it 
except to enjoy the benefit of it ? Do we expect the Al- 
mighty to rain seed upon our fields each spring, and send 
invisible reapers to gather the cro]D into our barn each 
autumn ? We expect nothing of the kind. We know that 
if the world should agree to give up sowing and reaping, 
seed-time and harvest — for all that is contained in the afore- 
said declaration — would become things unknown, and the very 
terms be banished from the human vocabulary. No, but we 
understand the declaration thus, — that God will so order it 
that, each season of the earth's duration, there shall be one 
season when grain will sprout and grow, and another when 
it will mature and ripen ; by taking advantage of which, in 
the way of sowing and reaping, man may in all time secure 
a supply of the great necessary of life. Such is the differ- 
ence between the pur|)oses of God which he executes himself, 
exclusively, and the purposes of God which he executes 
through human instrumentalities. Is there any possibility of 
conibunding them? If one, after reading* the verse just 
quoted, should assert that their fields must be sown next 
spring, and reaped next fall, though none of their owners 
raise a finger towards it, because God has decreed that seed- 



KEY. WM. B. WEED. 255 

time and harvest shall never cease, would you not pronounce 
him as clear a rebel against common sense as if he should 
say the sun will never set to-night unless I can contrive 
means to make it ? 

2. Xow to which of these classes does the decree of elec- 
tion belong ? Is it one which God carries into effect himself, 
exclusively, or through human instrumentality ? As he asks 
no help, and permits no interference in bringing about the 
change from natural night to day, so are we given to under- 
stand that he asks no help, and permits no interference in 
bringing about the change of moral darkness to light in those 
whom he hath ordained to salvation ? Hear him, or hear the 
apostle speaking in his name : " God hath from the begin- 
ning chosen [elected] you to salvation through sanctification 
of the Spirit and belief of the truth." What is the truth ? 
The gospel. What is the gospel ? Christ crucified. " But 
how shall they believe on him of whom they have not heard ? 
And how shall they hear without a preacher ?" Or, as it is 
elsewhere expressed more briefiy — " God is pleased by the 
foolishness of preaching to save them that believe." God's 
purpose of election, then, is to be carried into effect by 
human agencies. Those whom he hath from the beginning 
chosen to salvation, are saved by means of gospel truth com- 
municated to them by human preachers. That purpose, so 
far from precluding or prohibiting human effort, requires and 
demands it. We must preach — we must labor for the sal- 
vation of men, because that is the very means by which 
those whom he hath elected to salvation are to be brought 
into the fold of the covenant. Just as Moses must smite the 
Red Sea with his rod, because that was the means by w^hich 
God had determined to make its waters part asunder their 
liquid folding-doors for Israel to pass through ; just for the 
same reason that all Israel, with their priests, and their rams'- 
horn music, must compass Jericho seven days, because that 
w^as the means by which God had determined to make its 
walls fall fi.at. And, on the other hand, "If I believed in 
election, I should think it needless to call sinners to repent- 
ance," amounts to precisely this : " If I believed that God 
had decreed that my daughter should be the most accom- 
plished young woman in the State, in music and drawing, I 
should think it needless to have her take a single lesson in 
either. If I knew for certain that God had determined that 
son of mine should be a Bentley, a Casaubon, a Newton — 



256 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

the greatest scholar of his time — I should think it needless 
to send him to school another day!" 

3. But we go further, and assert that God's purpose of elec- 
tion is a special motive and encouragement to earnest effort 
for human salvation. It is the night when Cyrus the Persian 
was projecting his final assault on Babylon: the warrior is 
alone in his tent, pondering the hazard of the enterprise, 
dubious of the result, when his generals approach, bringing 
into his presence one of the Jewish captives who had escaped 
from the city, and who now proceeds to unroll before him 
the prophecy of Isaiah, and read as follows : " Thus saith the 
Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have 
holden, to subdue nations before him — I will go before thee, 
and make the crooked places straight : I will break in pieces 
the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron." He 
hears and believes all this as the word of Jehovah. What 
now is the effect ? Why, see him start from his tent, and 
cry to his assembled legions : " Chieftains ! Warriors ! The 
day is ours! The Almighty hath insured us the victory. 
These gates of brass cannot stand before us, for God hath 
decreed they shall give w^ay." Must it not have been so ? 
Must not the discovery that God had decreed a triumphant 
issue to that night's enterprise have nerved his arm, and that 
of all his host, with sevenfold vigor for the conflict ? Was 
it not so with Joshua and his Israelitish army, when they 
fought the mighty Anakims of Canaan ? God had decreed 
the result — the conquest of the land — the overthrow and 
slaughter of its defenders. They knew it, and that con- 
sciousness made them invincible — made one strong enough 
to chase a thousand, and two to put ten thousand to flight. 
And universally, in every arduous enterprise, the most urgent 
stimulus to effort is the hope of success — and when is that hope 
clearer, stronger, more influential than when God himself in- 
sures it ? It is the purpose of God that some shall be saved. 
We know not Avho, or how many. It may be all whom our 
influence can aflect. And what stronger stimulus to saving 
effort than to know that, so far as that effort is directed to 
those included in that 2:)urpose, it shall certainly succeed ? 
But we need not argue the point. God has decided it for 
us. When Paul, in the early stage of his missionary enter- 
prise at Corinth, tinding but little fruit result from his gospel 
sowing — finding the hearts of the heathen populace almost as 
hard as their own Acropolis — was apparently half inclined to 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 257 

beat a retreat, and leave tlie field to the enemy, God under- 
took to reassure his ebbing courage and his wavering faith. 
And what means did he employ for this purpose ? We an- 
swer, the doctrine of election — neither more nor less. Hear 
him : " Be not afraid, but speak, and hold not thy peace, for 
I am wdth thee, and no man shall set on thee to hurt thee — 
for I have much people in this city." What does he mean 
by the "much people"? Those whom Paul had already con- 
verted ? The apostle needed not to be told how many there 
w^ere. He knew their number, and knew that they w^ere but 
a comparative handful. What, then, does he mean ? That 
multitudes of that corrupt and dissolute population were al- 
ready his people? No, but they Avould be — because he 
had determined that they should be. As the French con- 
queror on the eve of Austerlitz, w^hen he saAV the hostile 
army making the false movement prophetic of defeat, ex- 
claimed in the confidence of military calculation, "That 
army is mine !" even so the Almighty, because he had de- 
termined that a host of these Corinthians should be the blessed 
victims of the sword of the Spirit, calls them so already — • 
even as saith his equal Son, "Other sheep I have" — not 
shall or will have — " w^hich are not of this fold." Gentiles, 
that is, heathens, idolaters, devil- woi^hippers, but ordained 
unto eternal life — irrevocably given to him by the decree and 
donation of the Father, and w^ho therefore Avere just as cer- 
tain one day to be his sheep as if they owned him for their 
Shepherd now. So, then, in the view^ of God, nothing w^as 
more calculated to encourage the apostle to labor for the sal- 
vation of souls in Corinth than to know that there was much 
people there whom he had desired to save. Need we any 
further witness ? Or if we do, do we not find it in the af- 
firmation of our owm judgment? Conceive that God had 
no purposes or determination in the matter — that men are 
to believe or not, as they please, without any divine inter- 
ference. How long could we apply the hammer of gospel 
influence to adamantine hearts, without feeling that the task 
was hopeless? But if we may believe that that adamant 
shall be softened w^ith fire from heaven, — if we may believe 
that God's word shall not return unto him void, — that with 
some, at least, it shall be fertilizing as the rain that cometh 
down, and the snow from heaven, — here is a motive to inspirit 
us in plying the instrumentalities of the gospel w^hich else- 
where we vainly look for — the motive, the encouragement 

22* 



258 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

arising from the conviction that God worketh with us — that 
while we plant and water he will give the increase — that the 
truth we bring in contact with the minds of men shall, so 
far as they are embraced in the purpose of his electing 
grace, be made mighty to salvation through the might and 
the power of the Spirit of the Lord of Hosts. 

II. The doctrine of election presents no barrier against 
the salvation of any human being — but the contrary. 

1. It prevents no one from complying with the terms, 
accepting the invitations of the gospel. There is one point 
in which the parable we employed last Sabbath to illustrate 
this subject — as it was obviously intended, in nearly every 
particular — there is one point in which its application ob- 
viously fails. When the master of the house found his mes- 
sages of invitation so contemptuously responded to, he com- 
manded his servants to go into the streets and lanes, into 
the highways and hedges, and bring in whomever they could 
find to partake his banquet ; but observe, he did not direct 
them to go a second time to those who were first invited. 
On the other hand, he declared emphatically that none of 
them should taste his supper; and we are to conclude, 
that if any of them had subsequently changed their mind 
and offered to come, they would have been given to under- 
stand that they were not wanted there. For observe, it 
were contrary to all verisimilitude, to have represented him 
as sending his servants to beg, entreat the attendance of 
those people who had treated his courteous invitation with 
contempt. It is what no man would have done. But it is 
just what God does. Infinite in all things, he is infinite in 
long-suffering ; and they who have longest and most perti- 
naciously said No to the offer of salvation, may still receive 
and enjoy it in its full plenitude if they wdll. We suppose 
there are those here to whom the proffer of eternal life 
through Jesus Christ, was made for the first time at least 
fifty years ago, and a thousand times since, and always de- 
clined. What then ? Do we tell you the invitation is now 
revoked — that it is too late for you to hope to taste of God's 
feast of life eternal ? We should do gross injustice to his 
loving, forbearing heart if we did. His language is — " How 
can I give you up ?" — " Come, for all things are now ready" — 
" Him that cometb, I will in no wise cast out." Thus does he, 
and thus will he speak to you, even to the day of your death. 
Thus does he, and thus will he speak to every one who has 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 259 

ever heard the gospel call — even to the last hour of their 
earthly probation. The purpose of election does not bar the 
salvation of any. It simply secures the salvation of some — 
not by opening the door wider to them than to the rest, but 
simply by inducing them to enter ; not by making the invi- 
tation more clear and direct and explicit to them than to 
others, but simply by making them wilhng to accept it. 
To them, to all, to the elect and to the non-elect, the gates 
of gospel grace are open as wide, and the invitation to enter 
and share the priceless but gratuitous wine and milk of sal- 
vation is as direct and explicit, as was the door of that sup- 
per chamber, and the invitation to those first bidden ; and so 
it will be as long as they live ; and nothing ever can, eve^ 
Avill keep back, keep out from heaven any human being to 
whom the sound of the gospel comes, except his own un- 
willingness. We only add that, if any of you have a dif- 
ferent view of the matter, and imagine that the doctrine of 
election puts a shred, or a straw, or a feather in the way of 
the salvation of man or woman, which would not exist if 
there were no such thing as election, why then you have a 
conception of that doctrine for which the word of God is not 
responsible. 

2. This doctrine, rightly understood, has no tendency to 
prevent or excuse men from personal effort in working out 
their salvation. That which would require personal exertion 
if there were no divine decrees, requires it just the same not- 
withstanding these decrees. God has elected you to salva- 
tion, or he has not. It is just as certain, — for it is only of the 
Lord's will that we do this or that, that is, do any thing — it 
is just as certain that he has determined that you shall see 
your home again, as that you shall not. What then ? will 
you say if the former be his determination, I shall get home 
in any event ; and if the latter, I never shall, let me do what 
I will ; and therefore I will sit here till doomsday ? That 
were just as reasonable as to say, " If I am elected, I shall be 
saved in any event ; and if I am not, I shall be lost let me do 
what I will ; and therefore I will do nothing." You are sick. 
It is just as certain that God has determined you shall re- 
cover, or that you shall not, as it is that he has elected you 
to salvation, or that he has not. What then ? will you say, 
if he has determined I shall recover, I shall in any event ; 
and if he has determined the contrary, I shall die, let me do 
what I may ; and therefore I wdll do nothing ? That were 



260 SEEMONS BY THE LATE 

just as reasonable as to say, If I am elected I shall be saved 
in any event ; and if I am not, I shall be lost, let me do what 
I may ; and therefore I will do nothing. Dear hearer, ap- 
ply the same dictate of common sense to the matter of your 
deliverance from sin and hell that you do to the matter of 
yoTU' deliverance from ordinary evils. If an ordinary evil is 
upon you, — disease for instance, — you know that whatever the 
purposes of God may be in this matter, it is your duty to 
make use of the appropriate means, medical advice and pre- 
scriptions, to remove it. Exactly so, if the tremendous evil 
of sin is upon you, and its awful curse is before you, what- 
ever the purpose of God may be in the matter, your duty is 
to make use of the appointed means to be rid of the one and 
to escape the other. What are these means? Inspiration 
answers — " Repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, 
and thou shalt be saved." That is the way to get rid of the 
evil and the curse of sin. If God were to announce to you 
his purpose that you should emigrate to the planet Saturn, 
you might, you must leave to him exclusively the execution 
of that purpose, it being out of your power to do any thing 
towards it. But conceive he should announce his purpose 
that one of you, who are a farmer, should make the largest 
crop, next year, of any man in the State. Would that 
prevent or hinder you from using the means by which 
crops are made ? Prevent! hinder! it would stimulate you, 
with the intensity of success. And so, if you were assured 
that God had chosen you to 'salvation, yet seeing he has 
also told you the necessary means of salvation are repentance 
and faith in his Son — the certainty of accomplishing the end 
ought not to prevent or hinder, but stimulate you to use the 
necessary means. The certainty of being saved ought not 
to prevent or hinder, but stimulate you to do what, it is 
equally certain, is indispensable in order to be saved — repent 
and beheve. Is not this plain as it can be ? And is it not 
equally plain, that if you allow your notions of election to 
excuse you from any effort to comply with the terms of the 
gospel, it is only because you are willing to lay hold on any 
excuse, such as you would think it perfectly ridiculous to 
employ in every other case, to keep to earthly idols, and put 
off the work of faith and repentance. Dear soul, do your 
duty — God and your own interest makes it so — obey the 
gospel, and, elect or non-elect, thou shalt be saved, llefuse 
that duty, and, elect or non-elect, thou art lost. If God 
would give me a personal insi}ection of his book of life, and 



KEV. WM. B. WEED. 261 

if, after searching it throiigli and through, I found your name 
omitted, I will still tell you in the name of God — " Repent, 
believe on the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved." But 
if, in tljat volume of human fate, I found your name inscribed 
as conspicuously as Paul's or David's, I will still tell you in 
the name of God, Repent, believe in the Lord Jesus — or 
thou shalt perish, as surely as Judas. 

3. To the sinner who, instead of searching for pretexts to 
neglect his duty, is willing to attempt to do it — who, instead 
of trying to excuse himself from the work of salvation, is 
willing to set about the performance of it, the doctrine we 
have been insisting on is not an opiate but an elixir ; not a 
curb but a spur ; not a means of discouragement to hold 
him back, but an inspiring motive to bid him go forward. 
Here is an undertaking on which vast results of wealth or 
fame attend, but which requires extraordinary exeitions of 
body or mind, or both. And now, w^hile balancing between 
the advantages proposed and the exertions requisite, — longing 
for the one, dreading the other, — you are informed, in terms 
of infallible truth, that if you engage in that undertaking in 
right good earnest, there is a possibility, if not a probability, 
that God will render you immediate aid — will give such 
energy to your powers of body and mind as will make suc- 
cess infallible. N"ow, is not here a new, a special motive to 
go forward ? Dear sinner, a lost eternity is before thee, re- 
plete with the blackness of darkness. A bright celestial 
crown that sparkles near the eternal throne is before thee 
too. How shall I 'scape the one and wnn the other ? Re- 
plies the Bible : Break off thy sins by righteousness, and 
cleave, in humble, self-denying faith, to Christ, thy Lord and 
Sacrifice. But this is hard work. Be it. But it is harder 
yet to be damned ; and rather than incur the latter, reason, 
interest would bid thee undertake the former, though no 
mortal had ever succeeded in it, and though there were not 
a particle of certainty from any quarter that you should. 

But hard as the task of repentance and faith may be — 
millions have succeeded in it, thanks to God's electing gi'ace 
efficiently co-operating with them. And that electing grace 
may as efficiently co-operate with thee, and make your efforts 
as certain of success as it has those of any saint. in earth or 
heaven. See you not herein a new light of encouragement 
dawning on thee ? Feel you not herein a new motive stining 
within you, and a new impulse urging you to work out your 
salvation with fear and trembling, for that God may work in 



262 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

you both to will and to do of his good pleasure ? What 
then? Let the attractions of eternal glory, let the terrors of 
perdition, let the imperative sense of duty conspire with the 
prospect of divine assistance to enlist thee in this work at 
once with the utmost eifort, strife, and crying of thy soul — 
crying perpetually to the God of mercy for his co-operating 
grace and Spirit. So may the doctrine of election — a mill- 
stone to others because they abuse, it — be an elastic force 
to thee to lift thee up into the regions of hope. A savor of 
death to others, it shall be as mighty a stimulant to thee as 
the possible or probable alliance of Almighty forces can be, 
to make thy calling and election sure. 

How is it possible that any child of God can have aught 
to allege against a doctrine in which his whole salvation cen- 
tres — in which the dearest, sweetest, most astonishing, over- 
powering manifestation of love eternal is displayed ? An unrea- 
sonable, ungrateful, presumptuous wretch, I affronted and de- 
fied my Maker, for which I deserved to perish.* But such was 
his compassion for my guilty soul, that, instead of laying my 
guilt upon me, he took its burden upon himself, and expia- 
ted it amidst the agonies of the cross, and called to me with 
his dying voice, Come unto me in penitence and faith, and be 
saved, for I have paid thy ransom. Behold what manner of 
love ! But, mad that I was, I spurned the invitation. I 
would not believe. I would not repent. I would not come. 
I would not be saved, for which I doubly deserved to perish. 
But such was his compassion for my guilty soul that, instead 
of leaving me to the merited result of refusing the blood of a 
descending, suffering God, he put forth an additional and 
special iniiuence which broke my heart, and I repented, — 
which cured its insanity of unbelief, and I believed, — which 
gently drew me, and I came and nestled in him, my glorious 
hiding-place. And he always meant to do this for me. And 
this is election. Behold what manner of love is this ! Oh, 
brother, there is no more heart-moving, soul-melting aspect of 
the Blessed One than this ! He is all love, but here is its deepest 
and most sacred portion. Here is the Pisgah summit from 
which you get your clearest and most dehghtful view of 
the landscape of Jehovah's character ; and the most beatific 
vision unfolded to thy expanding faculties in heaven itself, 
will be nothing else but this — God, the Lord Jehovah, eter- 
nally determining to be a dying victim to save thy soul, and 
eternally determining to make you willing to be saved by him. 



EEV. WM. B. WEED. 263 



" Ho^ every one that tkirsteth^ come ye to the waters^ o.nd he that 
hath no money ; come ye^ huy^ and eat ; yea^ come^ buy wine and 
milk without money and ivithout priced — Isa. Iv. 1. 

A CRITIC has observed, respecting a lively jDoem of one of 
the distinguished bards of the present generation, that he 
appears to have composed it under 4he influence of exhilara- 
ting gas. We doubt, however, from what has been reported 
of his habits, that the stimulus in question was of a less harm- 
less and more potent description. But a higher and more 
fervent species of inspiration than either is betrayed in the 
rapturous strain contained in the chapter before us — the in- 
spiration of an impassioned and generous nature set on fire 
by the Spirit of God coming mightily upon him, and impart- 
ing through the warm impulses of that nature the communi- 
cation of Heaven's best news to men. We have said that 
the several parts of the Bible, according to the diflerent com- 
plexion of their contents, were assigned to writers of very 
different natural temperaments and capacities. And for 
good reason ; for we are so far from believing these writers 
to have been mere mechanical amanuenses of the Holy Ghost 
we believe their own natural and moral powers were called 
into such active requisition in penning the sacred records, 
that it is no disparagement to one class of them to say that 
he could not have fultilled the province assigned to another 
class. It is no disparagement to the sober historian of the 
Books of Kings to say that he could not have sustained the 
mighty burden of this first plenary announcement of Heaven's 
gospel grace, contained in the closing chapters of this prophet 
— it would have been Uke imposing upon an ordinary shallop 
the lading of a seventy-four. It required the mighty mind, 
the great heart, and the splendid imagination of this Goliath 
of the old prophets, to receive, to hold, and to convey to the 
human recipients it was intended for, this new and stupen- 
dous importation from the magazines of eternal truth. For 
of course we have no sympathy — we might have said no 
patience — with that meagre Jewish exposition, in which the 
first anti-evangelical critics of Germany, in their strenuous 
labor to expimge the palpable foreshadowings of the gospel 
from the Old Testament, unite — which would narrow down 



264: - SERMONS BY THE LATE 

the iiiiiversalities of this text and chapter to a mere offer of 
temporal blessings to the Hebrews when they got back from 
Babylon. Noah might as well have interpreted the announce- 
ment of a general flood as applicable to the narrow valley 
where his sheep and cattle were pasturing at the time. An 
Egyptian fellah might as well attempt to confine the enrich- 
ing overflow of the bounteous Nile to his own seven-by-nine 
patch of millet. '' Ho, every one !" Vittinger supposes that 
the images which underlie this proclamation, are the public 
fountains where water may be had gratis, and the free mar- 
ket to which all have access. The invitation to " every one 
that thirsteth," to " him that hath no money," excludes all 
restriction, and compels us to understand it in the most 
universal sense. The preceding chapters are occupied with 
the suflerings, exaltation, and glory of the Redeemer; — 
then follow^s a description of the increase, enlargement, and 
enrichment of his Church, w^hich should be the result of 
these sufl*erhigs and that exaltation and the manifestation 
of that glory. "The mountains shall depart, and the hills 
be removed ; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, 
neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith 
the Lord that hath mercy on thee." ''Great shall be the peace 
of thy children — in righteousness shalt thou be established. 
No Aveapon that is formed against thee shall prosper." " This 
is the heritage of the servants of the Lord." The text im- 
mediately follows — ''Ho, every one that thirsteth." The 
prophet — having given an inventory of this inheritance of 
mercy, peace, righteousness, security, to be purchased by 
Christ for his Church— for the servants of God — now exhibits 
it under the form of the most inviting provisions, most grate- 
ful to the appetite, and anticipates the functions of the gos- 
pel preacher by bidding everybody to come and share it. 

I. A few words, in the first place, as to the specific meaning 
of the commodities here offered. 

1. Calvin has sus^orested that under these three fio-ures are 
included all things essential to spiritual life and happiness. 
Water, the most ordinary refreshment of man — milk, his 
earliest, and one of the most grateful species of nutriment — 
and wnne, that maketh glad the -heart — are here put for those 
provisions of divine grace by which the soul is satisfied in all 
its wants^-refreshed, nourished, filled with joy and gladness. 
Yet we do not think the prophet intends so much to exhibit 
the several peculiarities of those gracious provisions by these 



KEY. WM. B. WEED. 265 

figures respectively, but rather the perfect freeness with 
which all of them are offered. That is the grand specialty 
of the text — the cardinal point on which it turns — the key 
which governs the whole of the blessed gospel tune with 
which it sounds forth, like heavenly music, amidst the harsh 
thunders of the law which was the order of the day at the 
time it was written — the unbought gratuitousness of the 
provisions of the gospel. 

2. We shall therefore obtain more correct views of the 
mind of the Spirit in the several clauses of the text in propor- 
tion as we interpret them in conformity with this, its leading 
feature. 

(1.) Waters, floods, overflowing streams, or copious 
showers, are often used by this prophet to denote abundant 
blessings from God — and especially those of which Christ 
was to be the procuring medium. In those days — when "the 
lame man shall leap as the hart, and the tongue of the dumb 
sing" — ^^"in the wilderness shall waters break out, and 
streams in the desert, and the parched ground shall become 
a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water." And a simi- 
lar promise, together with its spiritual explanation, occurs in 
the 44th chaptier : " For I will pour water upon him that 
is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground. I will pour my 
Spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring ; 
and they shall spring up as among grass, as willows by the 
water courses. One shall say, I am the Lord's," &c. It is 
the plenary effusion of the Spirit, then — the renewing and 
sanctifying gifts of the Holy Ghost — the general inventory 
of the peculiar blessings of the gospel of which that Divine 
Agent is the communicator — which are represented by these 
rivers and sti'eams of water. Christ, you are aware, both in 
the Gospel and the Revelation of John, employs the same 
figure, with a similar comprehensiveness of meaning. 

(2.) Now a literal river, or overflowing fountain, presents 
a gratuitous and plentiful supply of one of the necessaries of 
life. It is a specimen of the free and abundant provision 
that God has made of those things which man cannot do with- 
out. Air is another, light another, indispensable to human 
life, or health, or both ; and therefore God has created and 
provided them in such abundance as always to be had in 
plenty — and to be had for nothing. But milk and wine — I 
mean the genuine, unadulterated fruit of the vine, and not 
the wretched poisons which are now manufactured and sold 

23 



266 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

as a substitute for it, and which are rather to be regarded as 
the proper counterpart of the wine of the wrath of God — 
milk and wine, I say, are not to be ranked among the neces- 
saries, but the luxuries of life — and therefore, according to 
the general rule of Providence, that furnishes only necessa- 
ries for nothing — they are not to be had without labor or 
expense. As a general rule they can be obtained only as the 
equivalent of the one or the other. 'Now the teaching of the 
text is, that in this respect the rule of grace is altogether 
different from the rule of Providence — that it affords both 
the necessaries and the luxuries of the soul in the same liberal 
abundance, and on the same liberal terms. " Come ye to the 
waters," — and lest you should imagine, from the use of this 
term, that I speak only of necessaries — that only such consti- 
tute the provisions of the gospel feast, the gifts of gospel 
grace — I tell you that I call them waters not because they 
are nothing but necessaries, but-because of their abundance, 
and because of their freeness. In proof it, I offer you, just 
as abundantly, and just as freely, the counterpart of the 
comforts and luxuries — wine and milk — which can ordinarily 
be had only for buying. I offer to sell them on such terms 
that he may have them who is not worth a farthing. He 
shall have them as completely for his own as if he had paid 
the full price for them, without money and without price. 
Seek you for pardon, as the indispensable alternative to eter- 
nal death, without which your soul must perish beneath the 
anathema of divine justice? Take it "without money and 
without price." Nor need you be content with that — 
merely to escape with your life, to creep through your eter- 
nal existence as a pardoned culprit whom my forgiving grace 
hath exempted from hell flames. Justification, adoption, 
sanctifi cation, glorification, are all to be had on the same 
terms as pardon — ;just as gratuitously — "without money and 
without price." To hav6 the every debtor mark of all your 
sins razed out of the account which I have kept against you 
for the whole term of yonr moral existence — to have that 
w^hole account squared up by a receipt in full, to my perfect 
satisfaction — to be on the footing of an everlasting covenant 
of peace with me, as the adopted son of the Highest — to ob- 
tain the means of attaining a grade of personal holiness that 
shall make you the mate of angels — and, finally, to stand in 
a security of bliss to which all eternity shall bring not a 
moment's rupture, as eminent among the sons of light on 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 267 

the heights of heaven, as the child and favorite of Jehovah, 
as you deserved to lie low in the depths of hell as his 
wanton foe, and wretched victim, — all this requires no 
greater outlay, no greater expenditure, on your part, than 
the mere forgiveness of your sins. All this is within your 
means, though poor as poverty — for it is to be bought with- 
out money and without price. Behold the sum of the text. 
All the gospel gifts of God — the rarest, the most precious, 
the most inestimable in point of intrinsic value, are free as 
water in the terms of their bestowment. 

11. We proceed, then, to endeavor to set this truth before 
your minds as a visible, tangible, intelligible and reasonable 
fact. Nor, in so doing, do we conceive that we undertake 
a superfluous nor an easy task. In order to obtain a given 
thing it is needful that we understand the terms on which it 
can be had ; especially when, as in the present case, these 
terms are inflexibly one and unchangeable. And though 
the Old Testament, and especially the New, are replete with 
iterations of the terms of the gospel — the perfect gratuitous- 
ness of the benefits which the glad tidings of the gospel con- 
vey to man, — yet we apprehend that many who have read 
the Bible through, and heard it almost preached through, 
have no definite conception or impression of that perfect 
gratuitousness as a real, practical fact which they are at 
liberty to act upon ; and would be much more ready to copy 
the example of Simon, and try to buy the gift of God with 
money or something else, than to comply with the generous 
invitation of Jesus and take it freely. 

1. Let us first present you with an analogical fact. With 
most of you at present, the gifts of Providence — aside from 
the sheer necessaries we have before spoken of — are not con- 
ferred upon you without an equivalent : you have to labor 
for them or to pay money for them. But in the case of every 
one of us there has been a considerable period — part of it, 
indeed, not within our memory, but within our knowledge — 
when every thing that was needful to the comfort of our 
life as well as indispensable to the preservation of our life 
itself, was absolutely beyond any possibility of our own to 
provide or furnish. I speak, of course, of the period of 
infancy. In the ordination of Providence, the whole human 
race comes into existence in a state of utter helplessness — 
such that, if left to themselves, they would literally be born 
only to die. Without some special provision for the supply 



268 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

of their necessities, wholly independent of themselves, not 
one of them would live a month. Now, what is the provi- 
sion which God has made to meet this state of things? Pie 
has so ordered it that the child, when first it opens its eyes 
upon the hght, finds itself in the hands of those to whom 
God has given the intelligence w^hich enables them to under- 
stand its wants and necessities, the means which enable and 
the parental love which disposes them to supply them — as 
saith the dehghtful cradle hymn of Dr. Watts, — 

*' Sleep, my babe, thy food and raiment, 
House and home, thy friends provide; 
And without thy care and payment, 
All thy wants are well supplied." 

'' Food and raiment, house and home, thy friends provide !" 
But who has provided them ? Who gave them the means 
and the disposition, thus cheerfully, and adequately, and un- 
tiringly to befriend thy helplessness? We cal? those hea- 
then parents unnatural, who destroy or purposely neglect 
their children, and suffer them to die ; but the same thing 
might be perfectly natural in all parents but for the God 
who made them otherwise. He had only to abstain from 
implanting in their bosoms the impulse of natural affection, 
and a wholesale destruction, or neglect and abandonment — 
which would have amounted to the same thing — might have 
been just as natural as it is now unnatural. It is obviously, 
then, a divine arrangement, meeting and providing for the 
imbecility of infancy — through means, indeed, but such 
means as the imbecile infant has no agency whatever in pro- 
curing — that has preserved the race from extinction. Every 
adult now living may say with Addison, — 

^' Thy providence my life sustained, 
And all my wants repress' d, 
When I a helpless infant lay. 
And hung upon the breast. 

** To all my weak complaints and cries, 
Thy mercy lent an ear, 
Ere yet my feeble thoughts had learn'd 
To form themselves in prayer. 

*' Unnumber'd comforts to my soul 
Thy daily care bestowM, 
Before my infant heart conceived 
From whom those comforts flow'd." 

2. We propose these familiar facts in order to make the 
doctrine of free grace intelligible. That all things pertaining 



KEY. WM. B. WKED. 269 

to life (spiritual) and godliness are, in the strict sense of the 
word, gratuitous gifts, is a doctrine which, we fear, many 
Christians are slow of heart to receive. " I must do some- 
thing, pay some price, render some equivalent." They re- 
gard the procurement of their spiritual blessings not as a 
matter of gift, but as a matter of barter. " I must do so 
much, and then God will do thus and so for me." One thing 
that keeps sinners far from God, and many a Christian from 
following him only at a timid distance, is that they will not, 
or cannot, understand the divine generosity and beneficence 
which is willing to give us every thing for nothing. Behold 
the proof that this divine generosity, though indeed a mar- 
vellous, is no unexampled thing. Behold a specimen of it in 
the fact that any one of you would have died before a single 
year had passed over your head, but for the free and gratui- 
tous provision of a beneficent God, enabling you to buy, with- 
out money, without price, or equivalent, or effort, every thing 
which the manifold wants of that helpless period required. 
Now see its perfect parallel, point for point, in the as free 
provision that he has made for the wants of your soul. 

(1.) If you have given due heed to our recent discourses 
on native depravity, and on the nature and evil of sin, you 
will not deem our assertion a strange one, that natural man 
is a moral imbecile — the moral counterpart of a helpless im- 
becile. What bones, and nerves, and muscles are to the 
strength of the body, moral virtue, right principle is to the 
strength of the soul. But natural man has no rectitude of 
principle. The essence of that is the fear of God, and he 
" has no fear of God before his eyes." The reverential fear of 
God — fountain of holy obedience and moral righteousness — 
is a total sti*anger to his nature ; and thus destitute of the 
source, the heart of moral principle, he hath none of its 
nerves, and strength, and power. His feet run without w^eary- 
ing, walk without fainting, in the ways of evil ; but he falls 
down the moment he tries to take a single step in the ways 
of righteousness. Sin, — the master, consumer, tyrant, mur- 
derer of his soul, — he can serve her with all his soul, and 
mind, and strength ; but to give himself to the hearty service 
of God one hour, is like trying to reverse the motion of the 
globe, and set it turning the other way. With the strength 
of Samson he can break through the restraints of the law of 
God that forbid his sinful indulgence, as if they were so many 
green withes ; but he hath the weakness of an infant for the 

23* 



270 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

least temptation to sin which the world or the devil throws 
in his way. He can work like one of the fabled Titans, to 
j)ile mountains upon mountains of guilt ; but he cannot inter- 
pose a straw's obstruction to prevent them from returning 
on his own head, and crushing him with everlasting ruin. 
Such is man in the infantile imbecility of a sinful nature — 
powerful only for self-destruction, and helpless as regards 
any movement to retrieve his fall ; full of wants, and helpless 
to meet them — yea, more than all, — unconscious of their 
existence ; sure to perish without holiness, without personal 
righteousness, yet indisposed and unable to take a single 
step towards acquiring it ; sure to die in his sins, their guilt 
and misery, unless justified from their penalty, and washed 
from their stains, yet indisposed and unable to lift a finger 
towards effecting either ; the unprotected and uncared-for 
infant would not more surely hasten from the womb to the 
grave than he — than all the race— for all are by nature chil- 
dren of sin and wrath — would inevitably find their speedy 
landing-place in the tomb of the second death, without some 
special divine arrangement by which a gratuitous provision, 
wholly independent of their own procuring, might be made 
to meet their helpless condition, supply its necessities, and 
save them from its natural and fatal results. 

(2.) Now such an arrangement has been made ; and its 
sum is declared by the apostle thus : "When we were without 
strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly." God 
hath not, indeed, provided each of these helpless ones with 
the love and guardianship of a separate friend, or parent; 
but he has done what amounts to the same thing. He has 
provided One to sustain the kind parental relation to their 
souls, of such capacity as to discharge that ofiice to each one 
of them as adequately as if his whole vocation were confined 
to him. No need of giving him the means, for he had them 
already in his own infinite resources ; no need of imparting 
to him the disposition, for he had it already in the depths of 
his own generous heart of love. It was only needful for God 
the Father to impose on him the duty, and lo, God the Son 
comes forth confirmed, proclaimed protector, guaixlian, pa- 
rent-general, to a whole world full of self-orphaned souls, who 
had as little to do in procuring him as such as that infant had in 
procuring the kind and tender attentions of its parent. And 
that parent no more thinks of demanding a requital for what 
she does for that infant, than Jesus thinks of selling his all- 



KEY. \VM. B. WEED. 271 

gracious benefactions. Not more freely does she offer to her 
little one the milk of her bosom, than he, the kind, the gen- 
erous, offers the blood of his, and all that it can purchase, to 
thee, thou lost one ! What his children are to say to him 
at the last day, each of them may now, and with a more in- 
tensive meaning, say to him : " I was an hungered, and thou 
gavest me thy own flesh to eat ; I Avas thirsty, and thou gavest 
me the water of life. I was a stranger to God, to peace, to 
happiness, and thou didst take me into the blessed home of 
thy unfailing friendship, and brought me delightedly acquaint- 
ed with all these. I was naked, and thou clothedst me with 
the garment of salvation. I was sick, sin-sick unto death, 
and thou visitedst me, not merely as a friend to comfort, but 
as a physician to cure : 

" 'First gave me sight to view thee, 
For sin my eyes had seal'd ; 
Then bade me look unto thee — 
I look'd, and I was heaPd.' 

" I was in prison, and thou didst come unto me — not merely 
to compassionate, but to free me ; not merely to sympathize 
in my bondage, but as thy own angel did by Peter, to make 
the captive chains, in which Satan bound me, fall off, and 
lead me forth to the full enjoyment of everlasting freedom 
— and all for nothing." All that the hungry, naked, sick, 
and dying soul requires to place him in circumstances where 
he shall be absolutely in need of nothing, where he can say 
without hyperbole, " All things are mine " — the fulness of an 
infinitely rich, the will of an infinitely compassionate and 
loving Christ, to bestow freely, abundantly, gratuitously, — 
with a bounty that knows no stint, and a liberality that wants 
no pay. 

III. Now, how extensive is the advertisement — the invita- 
tion to this mart, fair, auction, storehouse, where everything 
is to be had for nothing ? We answer, as extensive as, in 
the nature of the case, it can be — to all who want them. 
" Every one that thirsteth, come ye." All are welcomed to 
the blessings of the gospel, to whom the blessings of the 
gospel are welcome. Our temporal wants are often beyond 
our means. We need many things which can be only had 
by purchase, and which we have not the means of purchas- 
ing. But there can be no such disproportion as regards the 
precious wares of the spiritual mart here advertised. It is 
opened for the needy, and its terms are adapted to the very 



272 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

lowest grades of destitution. The question is not " What can 
you pay ?" but " What do you want ?" Take what you will, 
and thank the Blessed One who standeth j)aymaster-general 
for all of you. Is that merchant going to bring in a bill 
against that infant for what he has furnished his parent for 
it, and for which the parent has paid already ? Does God 
the Father expect to be paid twice over for the spiritual gifts 
— the pardon, the justifying grace, the indwelling, sanctifying 
Spirit — for which he hath already had full compensation out 
of the heart's blood of God the Son ? No, dear needy one ; 
whatever you will, whatever you want, w^hatever you thirst 
for, behold it ready packed up, addressed to thee by name, 
and marked in crimson letters — " Paid for : take it." 

1. Is the hand of the Almighty heavy on thee ? Are you 
convinced of sin, of the want of righteousness, of a coming 
judgment ? Is the night-cloud of Jehovah's anger over thee ? 
Do your spirits sink within you when you think of his broken 
law, of your own guilt, and of his inflexible justice that will 
not clear it ? Say you, " What would I give for one reviving 
draught of mercy ?" Do you pant for it — thirst for it ? See, 
then, what Jesus has already given for it, that you might have 
it for nothing. In his death-agony he cried, " I thirst :" they 
gave him noticing but vinegar. But let him once hear you 
crying in the broken-hearted distress of conscious guilt, " I 
thirst for deliverance, for pardon," and behold he bringeth 
to your lips the blessed waters of forgiving mercy which his 
own death-agony hath purchased, saying, " Take it freely." 

2. Or, saith another — " I have an humble, trembling hope 
of pardon, but I am not satisfied with that." Neither does 
Christ expect you to be. 'Not merely water, but milk and 
wine, — that is, as we have explained it — not merely the ne- 
cessaries, but the comforts and luxuiies of the soul, are offered 
here, and all on the same terms. The victory over sin, the 
peace of God which follows it, the undoubted assurance of 
adoption — the blessedness of a growing sanctification of 
body, soul, and spirit — equally advertised — equally cheap. 
Do you thirst for these things ? Then you are the very man, 
the very woman, to whom the text saith. Go and claim them. 
Say you, " I should have more confidence in doing so, if I 
were not such a worthless, unprofitable one — if I could find 
mo're of the life and the fear of religion in me ?" That is, if 
you had a few coppers of righteousness of your own, you 
would have more confidence in making application for the 



EEV. WM. B. WEED. 273 

means of growing in grace. But we beg you to understand 
that, if you were the most growing Christian in the world, 
if you added six cubits to your spiritual stature every day 
you lived, and lived a thousand years — on the last day of 
that thousand years you would be repelled from the throne 
of grace, if you went there on any other terms than those of 
the text, — " without money and without price." You could 
get nothing there except with the beggar's plea. But you 
can get every thing there with that plea now. Alas ! how many 
bring leanness into their souls in the vain attempt to earn, to 
merit, to pay for that which can be had for nothing, and only 
had for nothing — trying to grow better in order to venture 
to ask, instead of asking in order to grow better. The for- 
mer is law : the latter gospel. Law saith. Expect nothing of 
God but what you can offer a full equivalent of personal merit 
for. But the gospel saith. Seeing we have a great High 
Priest who hath merited every thing for us — let us therefore 
come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain 
every thing. 

3. Or say you, "I have no such thirst for the various 
commodities figured in the text; if they are such as you de- 
scribe, I feel that I can do very well without them ?" Then 
we tell you, we would as soon have slept on the lip of Etna's 
crater, the night before its last explosion, as be in your situ- 
ation. It is a blessing to be content with our temporal lot ; 
— but it is the worst thing possible for a human soul to be 
content, satisfied with his spiritual condition. What mean 
these free provisions of grace ? For whom are they meant 
but for a world of bankrupt sinners ? Would they be pro- 
vided if they were not wanted? Are you an exception? 
Were you never such ? Or have you ceased to be such — 
attained to the independence of a perfect holiness? Alas 
for your apathy, if you say the former; or for your presump- 
tion, if you assert the latter! The only hope of man is in a 
, free gospel, whose priceless gifts and benefits may be had 
without price. The only hopeful state of man is to be a con- 
stant and importunate applicant for them at the throne of 
mercy. The most hopeless state for any man is the reigning 
pride, or self-reliance, or unbelieving difiidence, that makes 
him a stranger there. 



274 SERMONS BY THE LATE 



'^ What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the ivhole world 
and lose his own soulP — Matt. xvi. 26. 

The Saviour asks this question, but he does not answer 
it, }3lainly implying that he conceived the question itself to 
carry with it the force of in-esistible conviction. He had 
just said to his disciples, " If any man will come after me, 
let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me." 
And now, we may suppose him to proceed : If you consider 
these conditions repulsive, — if you apprehend that you have 
made a losing bargain in joining yourselves to the humble 
fortunes of the man of Nazareth, — if you feel inclined to cast 
longing, lingering looks behind on the w^orld from which I 
have called you, — I tell you that in my track alone is eternal 
life, while the only wages which devotion to that world can 
earn is eternal death. Remain with me, pursue the rugged 
but heavenward path I tread, and you shall find your souls' 
salvation at the end of it. Return to the world, pursue her 
broad and crooked way, and strewn though it be Avith all 
that can please the taste, or glad the eye, or flatter the heart, 
you shall find that it terminates at the gate of the prison of 
lost souls ; and what, oh, what can this world aftbrd to com- 
pensate for a loss like this, were all her treasures poured 
into your bosom, were all her pleasures presented to your 
lips in one concentrated draught of bliss, and all her honors 
wreathed into one diadem of glory to crown your browns? 

The text naturally leads us to contemplate the value of 
the human soul. And where shall we begin ? — and how shall 
we form any adequate conceptions of its value ? We can 
compare it with no visible object, for there is no visible ob- 
ject that is like it. It stands alone, different from any thing 
else in the world. There is nothing but itself with which it 
can be compared, and nothing but itself by which it can be 
estimated. In truth, to fix its full value is beyond our power, 
for we know not our own selves. The most that we can do 
is to offer considerations to prove that it is beyond all price, 
that its worth bafiles the powers of calculation. 

I. Consider its position in the scale of being. When you 
see a dwelling-house in the process of erection, it is very 
natural for you to infer from its appearance and quality the 



KEY. WM. B. WEED. 275 

standing of the owner. So, had an intelligent being stood 
by while the great Builder constructed this magnificent cre- 
ation, and seen it rise beneath his hands in that beautiful 
variety in its parts, and that perfection as a whole, which 
became an architect who could command the resources of 
infinite wisdom to devise, and infinite power to execute, and 
infinite goodness to crown the whole, — what high ideas must 
he have formed of the dignity and worth of him whom he 
saw installed and crowned by the appointment of Heaven as 
the lord of all ! Take the humblest and — so to speak — least 
life-like form of life — take the poor insect whose existence is 
measured by a day, and which is destitute of half the senses 
and organs that belong to more perfect animals. How many 
grades of being are there between that and man ! But be- 
tween man and God there is but one. True, the distance 
between them is infinite ; but there is something sublime and 
exciting in the idea of being next door to God ! The animate 
creation presents us, so to speak, with a vast pyramid of life, 
rising layer above layer in the degrees of perfection ; but high 
over all, on the summit of that pyramid, the human spirit 
sits enthroned, with nothing above her but God, and he only 
because he is infinite and uncreated. 

n. Consider the powers of the human soul ; and, — 

1. As they are developed in her influence over the irra- 
tional creation. It has been noticed that in all his bodily 
faculties man is inferior to many of the brute race. The lion 
surpasses- him in strength and swiftness, the eagle in sharp- 
ness of vision, the dog in keenness of scent ; and yet, almost 
without exception, the whole brute race submit themselves 
as slaves of his will, or fly from the terror of his presence. 
There is scarcely a single animal, except when maddened by 
hunger or by rage, that ventures to withstand him. It is 
not to his bodily powers, then, but to the intellectual spirit, 
that they do homage. The wild beast of prey, when just 
about to rush upon him, shrinks back if he meets the steady 
glance of his eye, because that eye is the window from which 
the soul looks forth in her commanding majesty. 

2. Consider the powers of the human soul as they are de- 
veloped in her influence over matter. In this respect she 
has held from first to last one uninterrupted career of tri- 
umph, gradually but steadily subduing the world of matter 
to her dominion. She has made the earth yield up its min- 
eral and vegetable stores to minister to the comfort, and 



276 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

convenience, and luxury of the body in which she dwells ; 
she has made the waters, and even the invisible agents — the 
winds and steam — the agents of her will. If the works of 
nature display the attributes of the Godhead, not less does 
the soul display her affinity to the Godhead in controlling 
them. 

3. Consider her powers as they are developed in her own 
intellectual operations. Unconfined by any limits except 
those of the universe, her thoughts can converse with distant 
scenes and objects, and even wander through eternity — as- 
cend to heaven and commune with the Father of spirits 
there. Her understanding has not only counted the stars 
and called them by their names, but pried into the economy 
of the visible heavens and investigated the laws by which its 
starry host is governed. While the highest degree of instinct 
in animals only enables them to provide the means of sub- 
sistence and defence, the intelligence of the soul has been 
fathoming deeper and dee^Der into the mysteries of Nature, 
and the springs and causes of her operations. 

III. Consider how the soul is unaffected by all those means 
and agents of destruction or decay which the material world 
affords — in other words, its invulnerability. It was a favorite 
idea with the fabulous poets to represent their distinguished 
heroes impassive — that is, incapable of being injured by any 
mortal weapon ; to represent them in the thickest storm of bat- 
tle bidding defiance to the edge of the sword, and un wounded 
by showers of flying darts. Now the protecting charm against 
all external assaults which they feigned the bodies of their 
heroes to possess, the soul possesses in reality by the gift of 
her Creator. Matter, in whatever form, cannot touch her. 
The whole world besides presents one scene of gradual de- 
struction. Animals destroy each other, or yield to the influ- 
ence of age or disease, and perish. The shrub, the plant, the 
tree, having once attained to their full natural growth, im- 
mediately begin to decay. Even the solid rock is gradually 
crumbled down in the course of years, and the surface of the 
earth is defaced and rent by the storm and flood. But 
amidst all this scene of ruin, the soul, serene in her existence, 
smiles. All the elements have no power on her. Even 
those diseases and infirmities which waste and destroy the 
body have no effect on the soul, except in some cases in the 
way of sympathy ; and even then no permanent effect is pro- 
duced, but ^e are taught to believe that when the soul leaves 



REV. wm:. b. weed. 277 

that body — wliicli long disease, and infirmity, and finally 
death had corrupted and prostrated, and finally destroyed — 
that soul at once puts on the vigor and freshness of new-born 
youth, — like a bird confined in her cage, cramped and re- 
strained for the time being, but still in her nature unimpaired, 
unchanged, and ready to soar to the skies again the moment 
she is set free. 

IV. Consider the soul's capability of improvement. This 
may be illustrated in various ways. When a savage for the 
first time visits a civilized community, his first emotion is 
that of wonder and astonishment. When he contrasts the 
humble hut which he has left behind with the magnificent 
cities which now arise before him, — when he contrasts the 
rude pursuits of the wilderness with the triumphs of art 
which are now around him — he fancies himself transported 
almost into a new creation. But what makes the amazing 
difference between what he sees and what he has left behind? 
It is mind. It is the triumphs of mind that astonish him ; 
it is to the progressive capacity of the soul that his astonish- 
ment does homage. And the same feelings of amazement 
would fill our Encrlish ancestors who lived five centuries since 
could they revisit the land in which they dwelt. They would 
scarcely recognize in its refinements, its opulence, and power, 
the same country in which they had pursued a mode of life 
scarcely superior to that of the Indian on the frontier of ours. 
But it is mind that has wrought this change — each genera- 
tion beginning with the capital of knowledge which the pre- 
ceding one had left, and transmitting it, together with their 
own accumulations, as a capital for the next to work upon. 
And where shall this capacity of the soul for improvement 
end ? We find no data by which to fix its limits. We find 
no reason to doubt that the day shall come when the Apos- 
tle John, who once bowed down to worship the angel — 
awe-struck by the superior knowledge he had displayed in 
revealing things to come, — shall stand as high above that 
angel in the scale of knowledge as he was then beneath him. 

V. Consider the soul's immortality. And how shall we 
arrive at adequate ideas of this ? We naturally cherish a 
feeling of reverence for whatever bears the marks of age. 
The ancient temple, or column, wiiich is known to have been 
constructed thousands of years ago — how much more interest 
does the traveller feel in the sight of them than in contem- 
plating a modern structure of precisely the same appearance. 

24 



278 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

Look, too, at the distinction which all nations have consid- 
ered to be due to old age in men. If you were introduced 
to a person who had lived to the greatest age which man 
has attained in modern times — say 140 years — you would 
regard him not merely with feelings of curiosity, but with 
feehngs of awe almost approaching to reverence. But the 
same interest which years past would give to him — the same 
in kind, and immeasurably greater in degree, is given to the 
soul by the prospect of immortal years to come. The exist- 
ence which the soul has in expectance is of a duration to 
which that of Adam, if he had lived to the present hour, 
would be but as a drop to the bucket. How interesting, 
how great, how august does the soul become in this point of 
view! Not only uninjured, nnaifected by whatever in this 
world can corrode or destroy, but when the sentence of de- 
struction shall go forth against the world itself and all that 
it contains, and the stars shall fade away, the sun himself 
grow dim with age, and nature sink in years, the soul, pro- 
tected by her charter of immortality, shall stand unscathed 
amidst that universal wreck. 

And what mighty anticipations, in consideration of the 
soul's eternity, are we led to form as to the future advances 
of the soul in knowledge ! Consider that it has capacities 
unlimited in their nature in any respect, except that they are 
not infinite, and that it is to have infinite duration in which 
to exercise them ; see the soul progressing on from strength 
to strength, steadily advancing in knowledge for millions of 
ages, and then making the attainments of those millions of 
ages only the basis of new attainments ; and consider that 
every new step which it takes in knowledge adds to its 
standing, its dignity in the intelUgent universe, and then you 
see how impossible it is to form just notions of the true value 
and importance of the human soul, unless you could plant 
yourself at the termination of eternity, and see the glorious 
creature with all her treasures of knowledge and accumu- 
lated attainments there, and thus judge of what she is, by 
contemplating what she has done. 

But there are two collateral considerations which illustrate 
the value of the soul more forcibly, perhaps, than any thing 
that has here been said. 

I. The interest it excites in those beings who may be pre- 
sumed to know its value best. A warfare has been waging 
in this world of ours for near six thousand years. The con- 



KEY. WM. B. WEED. 279 

tending forces, on either hand, are not mere armies of flesh 
and blood, but immortal beings, including all the higher or- 
ders of intelligence, and not excepting even the highest. 
On the one side are arrayed principalities and powers — 
beings who once shone high amidst the inhabitants of 
heaven, and who have lost none of their intrinsic powers 
and natural capabilities yet. On the other side are engaged 
the forces of heaven, headed by the great Jehovah himself; 
and between them, from century to century, the strife has 
been unremitted, unceasing. And what is the object which 
thus brings the powers of heaven and hell into conflict ? It 
is the possession of the soul of man. For this the great 
God has put in requisition the resources of his eternal wis- 
dom. For this he has been sending his angels on constant 
errands of wrath or mercy to our world. For this he has 
clothed his prophets with the spirit of his inspiration. For 
this he has armed his apostles with his miraculous delegated 
powers. For this he has visited the habitations of men, and 
displayed, by special interposition, his majesty and glory in 
overwhelming floods, in devouring fires, on burning and 
quaking mountains, and in the person of his own dear Son — 
all this wonderful machinery of agencies he has put in opera- 
tion for the single object to obtain possession of — to win to 
himself — the human soul. And on the other hand, whatever 
means, whatever artifices uncompromising hostility to God 
can prompt, or thousands of years of experience teach a 
mind in its natural capacities perhaps only second to the In- 
finite Mind, the Prince of the power of the air has inces- 
santly employed to wrest the soul from its Maker, and make 
it a subject and victim of his own. Surely there must be an 
inestimable value attached to that possession, the acquisition 
of which has embroiled two worlds. We hear it often re- 
marked, how trifling the strifes and contests of this world 
must be in the sight of spiritual beings ; and, no doubt, when 
they look down on the battle-field where vast armies are eji- 
gaged, when an empire is to be the price of victory — no 
doubt, to them who know what a mere atom this whole world 
is in comparison with that vast universe which is their dwell- 
ing-place — no doubt that strife, estimated by the importance 
of its object, appears as insignificant to them as a strife 
among emmets for a grain of corn would appear to us. How 
vast, then, how important, how invaluable must that object be 
which those spiritual beings themselves think it worth while 



280 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

to contend for, and for Avhich they have been contending 
ever since the world was made ! That object for which they 
disdain not to embark their immortal energies — that object 
for which they have contended with infinitely more uiitiiing 
efforts than ever one of earth's monarchs showed in lighting 
for his crown and life — that object is your own soul, fellow- 
sinner. Kings and nations sometimes employ vast means, 
immense military preparations, mighty armies, to obtain an 
object of conquest, which, after all, even in the estimation of 
men, is of little comparative value. But not so these superior 
beings, and especially not so God. With him the end is al- 
ways proportioned to the means, because he seeth the end 
from the beginning. I repeat, then, how important must be 
that end, to attain vs^hich he hath put in operation such a 
mighty array of means ! What inestimable value must belong 
to that soul, to save which he has made, and is making, such 
matchless displays of his wonder-working power! This 
leads me to remark — 

2. If you w^ould have the most striking and affecting 
proof of which the nature of the case admits, you must go 
to the cross of Calvary. There you will see the value of 
the soul, by contemplating the price which it took to buy it. 
And such a price ! Think of that vast amount of suffering 
which has converted this world, through all its generations, 
into one great house of mourning, and wherewith the whole 
creation groaneth and travaileth together until now. Think 
of the pain and suffering that have flowed from private 
strifes and rencontres. Think of the sufferings of which war 
has been the prolific parent — not merely the bodily pangs of 
the victim of the field of blood, but the mental agonies of 
those the death of whose happiness was involved in his. 
Think of the sufferings which vice, in her various aspects, has 
inflicted on her victims. Think of the sufferings which dis- 
ease, in its various forms, has visited on every individual of 
the human race ; and then remember that a million finites 
do not equal one infinite — that all the bodily and mental suf- 
ferings ever endured by human nature, are immeasurably 
outweighed in the magnitude of their importance by the 
sufferings of the Lord of nature — and then remember that 
nothing less than these could buy one soul. Compute the 
value of those sufferings, then, and you will have data from 
which to compute the value of the soul. But who can make 
this calculation ? " The fund of IJeaven — Heaven's inexhaust- 



KEY. WM. B. WEED. 281 

ible, exhausted fund, — amazing and amazed, poured forth the 
price all price beyond ; though curious to compute, archangels 
failed to cast the mighty sum. Its value vast, ungrasped by 
minds create, forever hides and glows in the Supreme." 
There, then, in the mind of the Supreme One, the knowledge 
of the value of the soul must lie. We may form some im- 
perfect notions of it, but we never can know it fully till we 
have learned to reckon up the worth of the blood of the 
eternal Son of God. 

And now need I say any thing as to what is meant by losing 
the soul ? When you say you have lost an article — a sum of 
money, for example — you do not mean that it has ceased to 
exist, but that it might as well not exist, as far as you are 
concerned — that it is no longer available to you for those 
purposes to Avhich you designed to apply it. And so the 
sold of man, when it answers not the purposes for which it 
was intended by its Maker, may well be said to be lost. The 
soul was intended to display the glory of God, in his moral 
image which was given her. When she suffers sin to deface 
that image, she may be said to be lost. The soul was in- 
tended to contemplate her God in his visible w^orks, and from 
thence draw motives for lovinof and servino^ him. When she 
converts the works of God themselves into objects of supreme 
affection, and loves and serves the creature rather than the 
Creator, she may be said to be lost. The soul was intended 
to be eternally happy in the society of God and of his holy 
angels. When sin hath unfitted her for this, and made her 
only fit to be a companion of Satan and his angels, and a 
victim of eternal misery, she may be said to be lost. In 
every such case the man may be said to have lost his soul. 
It is the same to him as if it did not exist. The same, did I 
say ? Nay, rather a thousand times worse ; for compared 
with the bitter portion which the wrath of God provides for 
the soul that is lost to herself and him, non-existence, annihi- 
lation would be an unspeakable blessing. 

I. And now, fellow-sinner, what can the world afford you 
to compensate for such a loss as this ? The man who squan- 
ders his property, you charge with folly. The man who 
squanders his health, you call a madman. Of what folly and 
madness, then, is he guilty who squanders that possession, to 
w^hich health and property are only temporary appendages — 
his own immortal soul ! That soul is the appointed lord of 
the w^orks of God. Will you make it their slave? That 

24* 



282 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

soul is by nature but one remove from God. Will you ban- 
ish it forever from the presence of his glory ? That soul is 
superior to all animate and inanimate nature. Will you 
make it subject to the corrupt appetites of carnal nature? 
That soul is invulnerable by all material agents. Will you 
expose it to the wrath of Him " who can destroy both body 
and soul in hell ?" That soul is unaffected by the diseases 
of the body. Will you suffer it to be polluted with the dis- 
ease of sin? That soul has thoughts and aspirations that 
wander through eternity. Will you confine them to the 
limits and the objects of this narrow w^orld ? That soul has 
powers that are capable of almost unlimited improvement. 
Shall they be employed only in acts of hostility against the 
God who gave them? That soul is immortal. Will you 
doom it to an immortality of death ? That soul two worlds 
are engaged in a contest to win. Can you be indifferent to 
the event of that contest ? You are not indifferent. Your 
own heart is siding with the adversary, and conspiring with 
him for the ruin of your soul. Finally, the Son of God 
deemed that soul of so much value, that he scrupled not to 
give his blood to save it. Do you deem it of so little value 
as voluntarily to permit it to be lost in spite of that blood ? 
Oh ! could you perceive its worth, and its imminent danger, as 
God and his Son see it, how soon would you forget this 
world, its pursuits and pleasures, and give yourself up to this 
one absorbing thought, this one absorbing inquiry — How 
shall I save my soul ! I pray you delay not to appreciate its 
value till the conviction of its inestimable worth shall be 
forced upon you simultaneously with the conviction that it is 
lost. Is it reasonable to devote yourself exclusively to the 
adorning and pampering of that body which, without the 
spirit, is but a lump of earth, while the spirit itself is in 
danger of being sent into eternity in a state of abject, naked 
beggary ? What can the pleasures of this world avail you, 
if your soul must be debarred forever from the pleasures 
which are at God's right hand ? What will the honors of 
this world avail you, if your soul must be doomed to shame 
and everlasting contempt? What could the possession of 
the whole world avail you, if, as the price of it, your soul 
must be lost— lost to all good, lost to happiness, lost to 
heaven, and lost for ever more ? 

n. Dear brethren, are you duly sensible of the value of 
your soul ? Are you making as strenuous efforts to insure 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 283 

its salvation as Satan and his agents make to ruin it ? Are 
you as solicitous for your soul's prosperity as you are for 
your temporal prosperity ? Are there no occasions in which 
you have sacrificed the former to the latter ? Remember, 
"Xot every one that saith, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the 
kingdom of heaven." A profession of faith in Jesus, alone, 
cannot save your soul. The regular observance of God's 
ordinances, alone, cannot save it. God, alone, will not save 
it. You, you must be active in this matter, as vigorously, 
as untiringly, as if all depended on yourself. And it is not 
the business of a moment, an hour, a day, — not a thing to be 
attended to one day, and laid aside the next. It is — God 
intends it shall be — your chief pursuit, your great concern, to 

which all others are to be subordinate. Xor will vou think 

•I 

this too much to be asked of you, if you duly appreciate the 
worth of your soul. Depend upon it, that that Christian 
w^hose efforts in the pursuit of personal holiness have been 
most exemplary, when he comes to ascend the mount of 
God, and contemplate the value of the soul from thence, — 
w^hile he feels, in the heavenly raptures that glow" within 
him, what its salvation is, and sees far beneath him, in the 
torments of the i^it, w^hat its loss must be, — depend upon it, 
he will never think that he did too much while in the flesh 
to secure the one and avert the other. 



■♦♦♦■ 



" SMn for shin ; yea^ all that a man hath will he give for his 
lifey— Job ii. 4. 

The first three words of this passage are by several com- 
mentators interpreted thus: A man will give any other's 
skin to save his own — will sacrifice the life of any other per- 
son, of course of his own wife or child, in order to preserve 
his own. Li that case, by " all that he hath," in the follow- 
ing clause, we must understand his property and goods — 
making the whole proposition a sarcasm worthy of the devil 
who uttered it — unjust, we hope, as a general rule, while yet 
w^e fear that examples enough could be found to give it 
some countenance — that a man will give anybody's life — be 
it of his friend or of a member of his own family — yea, more, 



284 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

he will give what is far more valuable in his eyes — he will give 
all his goods and chattels to save his own life. But we do 
not think this interpretation of these words can stand, for 
this simple reason, that skin, as synonymoifs with life, is a 
form of speech unknown to the Scriptures. It never has 
this meaning unless it be here, and here by no means neces- 
sarily. There is another meaning of the phrase, which ijiakes 
the sense of the whole passage much more clear and con- 
nected, and much less discreditable to human nature. We 
take the preposition for — (skin for skin) — in the same signi- 
fication which it has in the first of John : — "And of his ful- 
ness have all we received, and grace for grace," which means 
grace upon grace — renewing grace, pardoning grace, justify- 
ing grace — sanctifying grace — lavished upon us in accumula- 
tive munificence. We think the same idea of accumulative- 
ness is intended to be conveyed here. Take notice that the 
skins of animals were very anciently an article of trafiic and 
merchandise, and, of course, a recognized item of worldly 
goods and wealth. In the earliest times the hides of the 
splendid animals — the tigers, leopards, &c., of India, were 
transported by the caravans of Arabia — where Job lived — to 
the marts of Egypt and Tyre. " On the walls of a tomb in 
the ruins of ancient Thebes," says Wilkinson, " men in a 
strange and foreign garb are represented as bringing to the 
king of Egypt, ivory, apes, leopards' skins, and dried fruits." 
The sense of the text, then, may be exhibited thus: A trav- 
eUing merchant crossing the desert with his load of peltry, 
•is attacked by robbers. "Take all I have," exclaims he, 
" and spare my life !" He opens his pannier, and turns out 
to them skin after skin — even to the last — and if that will 
not satisfy them, he will surrender every other article in his 
possession — camel and all — if they will only spare his person. 
Though the preposition takes this particular form, it is ob- 
viously meant to be a general one — a man cares more for 
his life than for any thing else that belongs to him. And it 
is introduced by Satan here, to extenuate his grievous mis- 
calculation and failure in his recent attempt on the virtue of 
Job. He had chosen his own weapons, and been faii-ly dis- 
comfited. "Touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee 
to thy face." It was done. In one day the patriarch, rich 
in his possessions, happy in his family, was reduced to the 
most naked destitution — sheep, oxen, camels plundered — 
sons and daughters dead. But never was devilish calcula- 



KEY. WM. B. WEED. 285 

tion so at fault. Nothing but blessing is heard from him, 
instead of the anticipated curse. And now the infernal 
slanderer endeavors to excuse his defeat, by construing his 
resignation into a stolid insensibility. It is not that he cares 
so much for his religion, but because he cares so little for 
what you have taken from him. You have not put him 
fairly to the trial yet. There is something else far more 
dear to him than sheep, oxen, camels, ay, than sons and 
daughters — his own person ; — touch that — lay your hand on 
that, and he will pay you back in curses. 

I. The text, considered as a general proposition strongly 
affirming the value which men set on their lives, is true ; 
and not the less so because it is Satan who utters it. Truth 
does not depend on the channel through which it is commu- 
nicated, but on its own essential nature. The nature of the 
Divine Being, indeed, is by a moral necessity eternally wed- 
ded to truth, and can never depart from it ; but no such ne- 
cessity confines the wickedest of men or devils to its opposite. 
Thus, while it is impossible that the God of truth should lie, 
it is not impossible that the father of lies should speak the 
truth, as in his present averment. Doubtless he was griev- 
ously mistaken in his present application . of it. When, by 
divine permission, he touched the person of the patriarch, 
and put his life in danger, he could no more make him curse 
than when his herds, and cattle, and children were taken 
from him. " Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him." 
And if this was the first time that the fact, that religion is 
dearer than life, has been practically exempHfied in this 
world, it certainly was not the last, as the whole rank and 
file of the glorious army of martyrs testifies. And patriot- 
ism has had its martyrs too ; on its altars the demanded sac- 
rifice of the individual life has been often and cheerfully laid. 
And so of personal afifection. In the late catastrophe on the 
Hudson, when Death on his twofold pinions of flood and fire 
was hovering over that fated vessel, a mother and daughter 
were seen on her deck clinging to each other in the terrible 
prospect of a speedy and final separation. A deliverer ap- 
proaches. "I w^ould do what I can for you. To rescue 
both is beyond my power, but I will undertake to save one 
of you. Which shall it be ?" Behold the daughter instanta- 
neously decide the question by plunging herself in the wel- 
tering waves, leaving her parent to the arm of the deliverer. 
She was saved ; the child— the devoted, the self sacrificing, 



286 SEKMONS BY THE LATE 

sank. That was a fearful scene where scores of lives were 
cut short in a moment by one fell stroke ; but say ye not 
that, in a more appropriate apphcation of the words than 
their original utterance, the noblest thing that perished there 
was that young faithful heart ? But the rarity of such sacri- 
fices, and the universal admiration they excite as of some- 
thing superhuman, show that if they be exceptions, they are 
emphatically exceptions which prove the general rule, that 
man's most vakied earthly boon is life, and his highest and 
most enduring earthly love is the love of life. The man who 
has outlived every other affection ; to whom the presence or 
absence of the wile of his bosom makes little difference ; who 
has forgotten the name and the countenance of the friend of 
his youth ; whose dry and withered heart could not afford a 
tear to moisten the turf where his youngest-born has been 
put to rest, still loves to live ; — his only surviving sensibility 
is that which is excited by the prospect of death. Other 
objects are loved for the good they impart to us ; hfe is loved 
on its own account. The attachment to that survives when 
all the good it imparted is at an end. How seldom does the 
veriest wretch, though stripped to the last shred of earthly 
comfort and enjoyment, wish to die — except in that despair- 
ing sentimentalism which means nothing! Other things, 
when they cease to be of use to us, we fling them away ; but 
when all that made existence desirable is vanished — when all 
its blessings are resumed — when, in the natural course of 
years or in the peculiar ordination of Providence, its cup of 
enjoyment is all drained or spilled, and the bitter residuum 
of evil, and evil only, remains, — existence is still clung to for 
itself alone. 

11. And why is the love of life so strong? Of course the 
immediate answer is, nature. But why hath the Maker im- 
planted in us that natural instinct which makes us cling to 
life with such pertinacious tenacity — willing, as a general 
rule, to part with any thing in order to save it ; while the 
loss of all things cannot make us wilUng to part with it ? 

1. The principal reason is to be found in its unspeakable 
value. It is true that if human life had no other object than 
what most men propose to themselves, it would seem to be 
a thing of small account ; and the question how far it is to be 
prolonged, how soon it is to be terminated, one of compar- 
atively little consequence. A few more or a few less days or 
years of successful or abortive effort in amassing money, or 



REV. WM. B. WKED. 



287 



in endeavoring to make a figure on that terrestrial scene 
whose curtain is soon to fall, and its stage to be demolished 
forever— a little more or a little less of the empty pleasure, 
and vanity, and nonsense which make the sum total of the 
idea of life as held by multitudes, would seem to make but 
little difference. But God seeth not as man seeth To him 
the present stage of existence hath an unspeakable impor- 
tance, as being the only probationary period he hath allotted 
ns-the period, and the only period, when the question of 
our eternal state is a question— when the web ot our ever- 
lasting fate is to be woven-when we are to sow the seeds 
of moral action, habit, character, of which our immoi-tahty 
is to be spent in reaping the crop. And because the life that 
now is is of so much importance in his eyes in its bearing on 
the life to come, he hath assigned to the former in the case 
of any individual, a fixed and definite period-long as his 
wise, and holv, and merciful purposes with reference to such 
individual, will admit. And during that allotted period his 
life is sacred in the eves of his Maker-it is under his special 
protection— safe amidst a fearful magazine ot elements and 
influences tending to destroy it. An angel's hand can no 
more thrust us to the grave before the divinely appomted 
time, than it can snatch us from it when that time is come. 
But in order to carrv out his purpose of preventing the pre- 
mature absorption of this vapor of a life, it is mdispensable 
that he should have a special and an active ally mthin our- 
selves—disposing, yea, constraining us to fall m witb and 
further thai pui^ose. And this ally, this _ auxiliary, he has 
secured in the act of making us-creatmg in us, as our most 
spontaneous, most wakeful, most potent instinct, the love ot 
existence-so spontaneous that by whatever means, Irom 
whatever quarter life is threatened, the movement ot selt- 
preservation outruns our very will— so ever wakeful that, in 
circumstances where we should feel indifferent to the preserva- 
tion of any thing else that belongs to us, we are always prompt 
to save that-so strong that no price can induce us to sell it 
and no privation, however universal or overwhelming, can 
tempt us to throw it away. The love of life, then, is a ne- 
cessary part of the divine arrangement to preserve it till his 
purpose respecting it as a probationary ^tate-a prelude ana 
preparation for immortality-is fully accompbshed. What- 
ever other ends this cardinal instinct subserves, are suboiai- 
nate to this. As for instance, — 



288 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

2. To inspire a disposition to acquiesce in the use of any 
means which may be necessary to its preservation. We said 
formerly that remedies for acute attacks of sickness — for 
bruised, or broken, or gangrened limbs — are often worse, 
that is, more painful, harder to bear, than the visitation they 
are employed to remove. What, then, is to hinder the pa- 
tient from determining to suffer to death rather than take 
them ? Nothing, manifestly, but this — that life is so supremely 
desirable as to make him willing to submit to any thing rather 
than part with it. If feeling, if sense explains that the rem- 
edy is worse than the disease, the love of existence must 
decide the question by exclaiming, in louder tones, that death, 
the extinction of existence, is worse than either. Then, too, 
think what painful and repulsive resourses — what incessant 
labor, w^hat slave-like toil, to which successive months and 
years bring no termination and almost no relaxation, are in- 
dispensable to millions, in a God-cursed world like this, in 
order to support life. Who could submit to such means if 
the end were less supremely precious? Were the love of 
life less strong, men would not toil, and sweat, and suffer to 
prolong it. In vain might the voice of all nations brand 
suicide among the worst of crimes. In vain might the voice 
of the Everlasting fix his canon against self slaughter ; mul- 
titudes would " shuffle off this mortal coil " rather than make 
their whole existence a perpetual sacrifice for its bare pres- 
ervation, did not the all-absorbing, all-controlling attachment 
to existence interpose its strong prevention. 

III. We now proceed, as a matter of practical instruction, 
to consider this most obvious of human phenomena, the love 
of life, in a relative point of vievv^ And, — 

1. As it stands related to the certainty of its termination. 
This relation, you perceive in a moment, is one of palpable 
and diametrical opposition — like that of heat to cold, or fire 
to water. Man's most cherished treasure is that which he 
is most certain to be robbed of; his most valued possession 
is that which he is most certain to be required to surrender 
up. His strongest, most original, most undeniably God-given 
instinct, is just that which is most certain to suffer violence, 
the extreme of laceration and mortification — and that at the 
hands of God himself The case is unique — without a paral- 
lel. Take, for example, the love of offspring. This doubt- 
less is a natural, though not an original nor a universal in- 
stinct. Multitudes of human beings have never felt it ; many 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 289 

parents, even, have seemed to be strangers to it : how else 
could they sell them into bondage, as is systematically done 
in some countries, or put them to death by wholesale imme- 
diately after their birth, as is done in others ? Then, too, 
this instinct is by no means necessarily doomed to mortifica- 
tion. Parental love may indeed be wounded by the bereave- 
ment of offspring ; but in every case there is no more than 
a possibility of this, while the probability is the other way. 
Then, too, as to the attachment to other possessions, — the 
love of property, — this doubtless is often doomed to severe 
rebuffs. Micah, bewailing his lost gods of gold and silver, 
hath had many a successor. But, besides that this phenom- 
enon is not a universal one — not every loser of mammon ends 
in a bereaved Micah — reason, not less than the word of God, 
forbids us to love the things of this world so well as to make 
the loss of them a source of poignant suffering. That love — 
call it natural if you will — is not originally an absorbing pas- 
sion. Be it that God is responsible for its existence — man, 
and not God, is responsible for its inordinateness; and the 
pain arising from its mortification, when excessively indulged, 
may be regarded as the just penalty of such indulgence. Not 
so the love of life. A universal instinct, it hath universally 
a matchless strength by the ordination of the Creator ; and 
yet by his as positive ordination it is universally destined to 
be mortified. All men passionately love to live, for so God 
made them. All men must die, for so God has appointed. 
He means to do violence to the very strongest natural in- 
stinct which he himself hath given them. Now of this fact 
there can be but one of two solutions. Either God is a guilty 
being, or else man is. We must either believe that God 
hath dealt with us in the wantonness of cruelty — for why, if 
he meant to inflict death on every one of us, did he not con- 
stitute us wath a less potent attachment to existence ; or, if 
he w^ould have our love of life so strong, why doth he terrify 
us wnth the always threatened and one day certain visit of 
the King of Terrors? — we must thus believe, I say, that God 
hath thus dealt with us in the wantonness of cruelty, or else 
acknowledge that this unnatural state, in which instinct and 
destiny are at swords' points with each other, is one of our 
own procuring; in plain words, that we are universally a 
fallen and guilty race, w^hose fall, whose guilt hath forfeited 
at the hands of God the existence which he gave, and made 
it consistent with, yea made it incumbent on the righteous- 

25 



290 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

ness in which his throne is established, to take it away — to 
visit us with the rigors of capital punishment — however pain- 
ful, however revolting the infliction be. And such is the 
solution of the Bible : " On the day thou sinnest thou shalt 
surely die." Behold the penal warning. "And so death 
passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." Behold its 
fulfilment. Nothing can answer the purposes of punishment 
to a human being, which does not do violence to some one 
of his natural propensities, feelings, passions. Thus, under 
civil government, the appointed punishment for certain 
offences is a mortification of the love of j^roperty, that is, a 
pecuniary fine ; for others the penalty is one which mortifies 
the love of liberty, that is, imprisonment ; while for other and 
higher crimes the penal blow is dealt at the love of life, inflict- 
ing death. Now, the highest specimen of human criminality 
is that of sin against God. Behold the justice, then, of provid- 
ing for that a penal blow at the highest and mightiest of human 
instincts, and proclaiming, "The soul that sinneth, it shall 
die." We repeat, then, that in view of that arrangement 
which sets the God-appointed destiny of man in such pal- 
pable opposition to his strongest God-given instinct, we must 
either pronounce sentence of condemnation on the Almighty, 
or else, as the only way to vindicate him, admit the Scrip- 
ture explanation that, universally, man is fallen, depraved, 
and guilty before God — and therefore must die ; this vio- 
lence, this deadly laceration and mortification of his mightiest 
original instinct being no more than the just measure which 
such guilt deserves. 

2. And let us consider the fact asserted in the text in its 
relation to the arrangements of the gospel. And here you 
see in a moment that that very love of life which serves as 
the special executioner of God's justice, is a no less cogent 
pleader and enforcer of his offered grace. It is this which 
makes the penalty of his broken law so terrible. It is this 
which makes the announcements of his redeeming love so 
attractive. If the love of life were less, the violated law 
which threatens to take it away were, in the same propor- 
tion, a less formidable foe. If the love of life were less, the 
gospel which offers to retrieve its forfeiture were, in the same 
measure, a less welcome friend. For this is what the gospel 
offers to do. "I am the resurrection and the life. He that 
believeth on me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." Can 
man, or angel, or God address a race like ours with a more 



KEV. WM. B. WEED. 291 

inviting proclamation ? It appeals to our strongest attach- 
ment, and offers to restore to us its forfeited object. It prof- 
fers to bring back to our possession that which we love the 
most, and which we have lost, life — that possession around 
which all the strongest, tenderest tendrils of our nature cling, 
and which our whole nature revolts at the thought of losing, 
life — which includes all that we have, or hope, or w^ish for, 
and which we would give all else that we have to save, life — 
which, love it, prize it, cherish it as we may, w^e see the hand 
of violated justice stretched forth to wrench it from our help- 
less grasp. Behold, the mighty Life-Giver of the gospel com- 
eth to the rescue, volunteering to secure to us the invaluable 
boon, to defend it against every claim of forfeiture, and make 
it ours by an everlasting tenure, a perpetual freehold. " The 
Son of Man hath life in himself." Believe in me, and through 
the channel of that faith a stream of my essential vitality shall 
flow into the dead pool of doomed mortality which consti- 
tutes your present being, making it spring up in a perennial 
fountain of eternal life like mine. Can the excess of stupid- 
ity fail to perceive the force of such a proclamation ? Can 
sevenfold blindness fail to see the adaptation of such a gos- 
pel ? Can adamantine obstinacy fail to bid welcome to such 
a friend, who comes to bring us w^hat we want the most — to 
meet the most imperative craving of our being — to roll back 
the rising billows of death that are plashing at our feet, and 
fix us on the rock of everlasting life ? Surely our fondest 
greeting should smooth the way of his approach, and every 
impulse of our souls reach forth a grateful hand to seize the 
gift he brings. 

I. Behold, then, the devil an advocate for Christ to the 
soul of man. Yes, though of course it is no part of the for- 
mer to preach the gospel, or to urge its acceptance on man- 
kind, yet those words of his which the Holy Ghost has caused 
to be recorded here, contain the strongest conceivable argu- 
ment to enforce the claims and proffers of the gospel, and 
completely nullify at the bar of reason any possible pretext 
for putting them aside. These words, wdiich, in their original 
utterance, were just a malignant and devilishly slanderous 
imputation against one of the best of men, may have the 
blessed effect of saving the soul of every sinner in this house, 
by driving him to Christ, and will, if he but gives them the 
practical w^eight which his own reason ascribes to them. 
Is this proposition true, then ? Is it true that all that a man 



292 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

hath he will give to save his life ? Conceive, what must one 
day be reality, your last hour is struck. You are on your 
death-bed. Your physician has given you up. Your friends 
have bid you a last farewell. You feel that your laboring 
lungs can heave but a moment longer — that that scarcely 
perceptible pulse must be in a moment still. Now what 
would you give for the lot of Hezekiah — to have fifteen years 
added to your life ? Suppose the proposal were intelligently 
presented to you. Would you consider all that you have 
too much to give for such a boon ? Suppose a bystander 
should tell you such a price was extravagant. Would you 
not tell him, Death in a moment more will make me give up 
all that I have, and surely I had better incur the loss of all 
things to save my life, than lose all things in the loss of life ? 
You agree, then, do you, that such a price, in such a case, 
for such a boon, would be perfectly reasonable ? Very well, 
you may — the Son of God being witness — you may have 
eternal life on these verv same identical terms. " If a man 
forsake not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple." But 
if, forsaking all, he becomes my disciple, I will give him eter- 
nal life. We said, you know^ the time is at hand when a 
million of worlds, if you had them at your disposal, could 
not lengthen your lease of life one hour ; when your medical 
attendants will pronounce, " He must die " — when you will 
read in the despairing looks of bystanding friends the sad 
conviction, " He must die " — when you will feel, in the per- 
ception of life's fast-ebbing springs the irresistible conscious- 
I must die." Now then, to have the ti'iumphant feel- 
ing that, after all, dying in your case is a sheer misnomer ; 
that in strictness of speech it is not you but death itself^ so 
far as you are concerned, that is about to give up the ghost ; 
that you are simply exchanging a lower for a loftier exist- 
ence, a less vital for a more vital being, a dying life for a 
deathless, a mortal life for an immortal one ; that in order 
to this the one requisite is this, — Give all that thou hast to 
the great Dispenser of that deathless being — that immortal 
life. Who tells you now the price is too high ? Reason ? 
Her decision hns been already given ; for if all that thou hast 
is a reasonable equivalent for the temporary prolongation of 
this poor mortal life, is it too high a price to pay for a life 
like angels' — beatific, unending, and immortal ? 

n. What, then, is your decision respecting his offer ? We 
tell you in love to your soul that we want it now. We are 



KEY. WM. B. WEED. 293 

not satisfied if you say, " I will think about it." We know 
not, you know not that you have a day, an hour for that. 
The question is plain enough for an immediate settlement, 
and all that is precious in your destinies demands it. Say, 
then, shall the Son of God have less success in tempting you 
to live, than Satan had in tempting Eve to die ? An apple 
was enough to induce her to throw her life away. Is not life 
enough to induce you to burst the bonds of death ? That 
infernal tempter had nothing to proffer in the ear of her 
reason — in view of the divine prohibition — but that which 
her whole nature revolted from ; and yet he carried his point. 
That glorious Tempter who seeks to weave his blessed love- 
wrought snares around your soul, and make it a captive of 
salvation, hath your whole nature — unless you admit that a 
wilful and unreasonable perverseness is part of it — on his side. 
Tremblinor on the confines of an incurred and threatened 
death like that of devils, he tempts your dread of it with a 
promised and complete deliverance from it. Fondly, passion- 
ately in love with existence, he tempts that love with the 
offer of a life, not such as mortals live, but like that of the 
immortal God. Shall he not carry his point? Or must it 
be given up as impossible that a reasonable soul should be 
persuaded to escape from that which is its chiefest dread and 
terror, when the door is thrown wide open ; the dying be pre- 
vailed upon to accept the gratuitous gift of an endless life ; 
and the lost be tempted into a free salvation ? 



'^ For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily ^^ — 
Col. ii. 9. 

You have had, I believe, a sermon from this text, within 
a year or two, from one well qualified to do it justice ; and 
it may be a useful exercise to compare your recollections of 
it with what shall now be delivered, as it may very probably 
offer you a specimen of the manifold fulness that belongs to 
the Word of God. Two men may write on the same passage 
of Scripture with equal fidelity to its letter and spirit, and yet 
without a thought, an idea, or scarcely a word in common. 
There is no more necessity that two sermons by different in- 
dividuals, or even by the same individual, from the same text, 

25* 



294: . SERMONS BY THE LATE 

should be alike, than that two plants springing out of the 
same square foot of soil should be — or (to take another ex- 
ample where the reason is more similar) than that two draw- 
ings taken from different parts of the same extensive and 
complex object — a vast building, for instance, or a variegated 
landscape — should be identical. In plain words, almost 
every verse of the Bible is polygonal — many-sided — capable, 
therefore, of being exhibited in a variety of views and aspects, 
each of which may be different from the rest, while all are 
true to it. 

I. We will first attempt an analysis of the text. We can 
see at a glance that it is intended to exhibit him — Christ — 
in a most interesting, a most lofty and transcendent attitude; 
but we shall have a distincter understanding of it by fixing 
our attention on the several expressions, one by one, by which 
that attitude is denoted. Everybody has a general idea 
of a sunbeam — but you must separate it into its elemental 
colors by means of the prism, and then apply the microscope 
to each of them successively, till you see the violet hue as 
distinctly as in the flower, and the indigo as plainly as in the 
vegetable extract of that name, and the blue and the green 
as palpably as in heaven's floor and earth's carpet — and so of 
the rest — before you can have any adequate conception of 
what a sunbeam is. We must adopt a corresponding pro- 
cess if we would acquire an adequate conception of the am- 
plitude of the proposition before us. 

1. We begin with — "Godhead." Its last syllable has no 
etymological relation to the separate word " head," but is of 
the same meaning with hood in manhood, womanhood, child- 
hood. Both terminations, though differently spelled, are 
from the Saxon liade^ which denotes a fixed state or condi- 
tion — derived from the verb haidan^ which signifies to fix, 
ordain, establish. Thus, as manhood denotes the state of 
being a man, and womanhood the state of being a woman, 
and childhood the state of being a child (I mean of course 
when these terms are predicated of individuals), so Godhead, 
or Godhood, denotes the state of being God. So much for 
etymology. In plainer terms, manhood is a synonym for 
human nature — that is, for all those natural and moral prop- 
erties which constitute a man in distinction from all other 
animals. Even so Godhead signifies the divine nature — that 
is, all those natural and moral properties which constitute a 
God in distinction from all other beings. I might add the 



KEV. WM. B. AVEED. 295 

observation of Dr. Webster, that this termination head^ now 
out of use except in the Bible, and occurring there only 
thrice, and always in connection with the Divine Being, pre- 
cisely corresponds with the Latin termination tas^ repre- 
sented in our language by ty. At this rate, Godhead is the 
same as Deity ; and as the latter word includes in its defini- 
tion — so does the former — every thing that is appropriate to 
the Supreme Being ; all the infinite essentials, the incommu- 
nicable specificalties of God. 

2. The word "fulness," as connected with this, simply 
serves to intensify the meaning — to make it stronger and 
more explicit. For the fulness of a thing, in Scripture phrase, 
is the whole of it — all that it contains — every thing that 
enters into its composition. " Blindness in part is happened 
unto Israel until the fulness of the Gentiles be brought in ;" 
the "fulness of the Gentiles" is all the Gentiles — the entire 
totality of the Gentile world. " The earth is the Lord's, and 
the fulness thereof" — that is, every thing it contains. " How 
many basketsfull took ye up ?" The literal Greek reads — 
the fulness of how many baskets took ye up ? — that is, the 
contents of how many. These examples sufiiciently indicate 
the meaning of the term here. The " fulness of the . God- 
head " is all that it contains — every thing that enters into its 
composition. Now, we have seen that the word Godhead 
alone means that ; but it is the fashion of this writer, when 
he would be exceedingly forcible and explicit, to heap on ex- 
pletives. "Our light afflictions work out for us eternal 
glory." A moreunimpassioned writer would have expressed 
the sense of that passage in no more words than that : but 
Paul has it, " a far more exceeding " — or, as Stuart renders 
it, "an excessively exceeding and eternal weight of glory" — 
as if he would say, It is a glory which no extravagance of 
language can exaggerate. So, in the present case. Godhead 
means all that is appropriate to the divine nature. But this 
is not strong enough for the ardent apostle ; it is the fulness 
— aU the fulness of Godhead — all the rich and incompre- 
hensible abundance of essential glories whereof the supreme 
and adorable nature is replete — a whole Godhead, fuU of 
divine perfection — that abides in Christ. 

3. Or dwells — for this brings us to the next important 
word of the text—" in him dwelleth all the fulness," &c. 
This denotes a fixed, permanent, habitual residence, in oppo- 
sition to staying, tarrying, sojourning. "He came and 



296 SERMONS BY THE LA.TE 

dwelt in a city called Nazareth" — this is said of Joseph, the 
reputed father of Christ. He had sojourned at Bethlehem, 
and subsequently in Egypt ; but now he came and dwelt in 
Nazareth — took up his permanent abode there for life. To 
say, then, the fulness of the Godhead — not is — not abides — 
but dwells in Christ, is to say — and in the strongest possible 
way — that the fulness of the Godhead is atTiome in him — 
belongs there, as its true, proper, habitual and permanent 
location. 

4. There is still one more significant expression here, to 
which it behooves us to give our attention — " dwelleth all 
the fulness of the Godhead bodily, ^"^ By this latter term one 
excellent critic would have as understand that the Godhead 
is incarnate in the person of Christ — makes his human body 
its permanent abode — which is doubtless true ; and it would 
not materially afi*ect our conception of the general sense of 
the text to adopt this view here. But we think that such is 
not the meaning of the apostle, and that if it had been he 
would have used a different expression — he would have said, 
dwells in his body, or person ; and that, in using the adverb- 
ial phrase " bodily," he means to indicate a distinction with 
reference to the Godhead itself — as to the sense in which it 
is exhibited in Christ. What would you mean by saying 
that truth, generosity, &c., were manifested in such a person 
bodily ? That they were inmates of his body ? Not at all ; 
but that they were manifested in no mere show or semblance, 
but really, truly, veritably. It is precisely so that St. Augus- 
tine understands our text. " For in him," says he, " all the 
plenitude of Divinity inhabits — not in a shadowy fashion, as 
in the temple made by Solomon, but bodily, that is, substan- 
tially and truly." To show the appropriateness of this inter- 
pretation, let us call in Paul himself as a witness, in the fol- 
lowing verses of this chapter. " Let no man therefore judge 
you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a holy day, or of 
the new moon, or of the sabbath day ; which are a shadow 
of things to come, but the body is of Christ." That is, the 
institutions of the ceremonial law have the same relation to 
Christ and the gospel which a shadow has to the body which 
projects it. The gospel blessings, which were exhibited in 
them in figurative shadow, are exhibited in Christ in their 
actual substance — bodily, really. Take another example of 
the same phraseology from Josephus. He tells us how Ar- 
chelaus, the son of Herod, went to Rome after the death of 



REV. WM. B. WEKD. 297 

his father to induce the emperor to confirm him as king in 
his stead. But Antipater, his nephew and rival, was there 
too; and, in order to prejudice the emperor against him, 
asserted that Archelaus had ah'eady exercised the royal au- 
thority without waiting for permission from Rome, and that 
it was a mere insult now to come and ask for the name when 
he had already usurped the thing — to desire the shadow of 
that royal authority whose body he had .already seized to 
himself. Whose body — that is, obviously, whose substance 
— whose reality. Now, in using this word " bodily" here, 
we think the apostle means to intimate a similar distinction 
— a real, substantial, literal and veritable habitation of the 
Divinity in Christ, in opposition to a shadowy, figurative, 
emblematic one. The Godhead dwells in heaven, in the im- 
mediate display of his glory. He dwells in the universe — in 
every part of it — in the constant exercise of his temporal prov- 
idence. He dwelt visibly in the temple, in the bright She- 
chinah ; specifically in the prophets, in empowering them to 
work mii^acles ; graciously, in all his sanctified ones ; rela- 
tively, in the visible Church; symbolically, in the sacra- 
ments ; — but in Christ bodily — in no mere relative, compar- 
ative, emblematic signification, but in its own literal and 
essential substance. 

II. This proposition aims a death-blow at every view of 
the person of Christ except that which asserts his absolute 
and essential Godship. We d«fy the ingenuity of man to 
invent a formula in which that doctrine shall be more strongly 
asserted, more carefully guarded from all possibility of mis- 
take or controversy, than it is in the text. 

1. Say you, Christ was no more than a great and glorious 
human prophet, to whom the Father lent — so to speak — the 
nse of his Godhead during the period of his earthly ministry, 
to assist him in performing its mighty functions ; just as he 
lent his omnipotence to Moses to work those signs and won- 
ders in Egypt wdth, and his omniscience to the other prophets 
to enable them to penetrate the secrets of the future ? But 
Christ's ministry was closed and he was gone to heaven full 
sixty years before this epistle was written ; yet says the apos- 
tle, the fulness of the Godhead— not dwelt, but dwells now 
in him. It could, then, be no temporary loan. Besides, it 
is all the fulness of the Godhead— every thing it includes— 
every thing that belongs to it. Now, could there be such a 
loan? Is it not an evident impossibility? For the y-ery 



298 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

first thing which — in our conception and according to reve- 
lation — belongs to the Godhead, is an eternal self-existence. 
Take that away, and the fulness of the Godhead would assur- 
edly be grievously lowered. If all the fulness of the Godhead 
dwells in Christ, then this eternal self-existence must. Now, 
need we insist on the absurdity of supposing God to impart 
or lend, in any possible sense of the term, his own self-exist- 
ence to a created being — not to mention that the last w^ord 
of the text precludes the idea that the use of these divine 
jDroperties was lent to Christ, and teaches that their actual 
substance belonged to him ? 

2. It is equally impossible for the Arian to maintain his 
ground in the face of this proposition. He holds Christ to 
be a sort of secondary Deity — a made God — whom the Fa- 
ther produced from himself, in some unimaginable way, from 
all eternity — with all the attributes of a Deity like his own, 
only in a certain sense inferior to him. I will not stop here 
to point out the absurdity of talking of grades of Deity, 
though I might submit it to the common sense of any one 
present that the next grade, the next step below supreme 
Deity must be that which is no Deity at all — that is, created 
being. But aside from this, if all the fulness of the Godhead, 
every property, perfection, attribute that belongs to it, dwells 
bodily — literally, substantially — in Christ, in what possible 
sense can he be inferior to the Father ? Do you pretend 
that more than complete and perfect Deity, more than all 
the fulness of the Godhead, dwells in the Father ? But if 
not, then Christ is his essential equal. He wanteth nothing 
that the Father hath, and all the plenitude of the divine na- 
ture belongs to the former not less than to the latter. 

III. Behold, then, the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity 
fully established. Be it ever remembered that this doctrine 
is one of pure revelation. We know absolutely nothing re- 
specting the mode of the divine existence, except from the 
Bible ; and he who attempts to advance in his speculations 
on the subject a single step beyond where he has Bible bot- 
tom to stand upon, is sure to get beyond his depth, and give 
a specimen of reasoning without facts, which is nothing but 
reasoning in defiance of reason. Keeping, then, the lights 
of revelation in view, let us, in order to simjDlify the subject 
as much as possible, direct our attention to the Father and 
the Son. It will not be doubted that to the former every 
thing, every attribute, every pei-fection appropriate to Deity 



KEY. WM. B. AVEED. 299 

pertains. But the text asserts that the same is true of 
Christ the Son. Well, if we stop here, we shall be obliged 
to conclude that the Father and the Son are two Gods, to 
all intents and purposes. To say that all that is peculiar to 
the human nature belongs to James and to John, is to say 
that James and John are two distinct and different men. 
To say that every thing that is peculiar to the angelic nature 
belongs to Gabriel and to Raphael, is to say that Gabriel and 
Raphael are two distinct and different angels. It] then, ev- 
ery thing that is peculiar to the divine nature belongs to the 
eternal Father and Christ the Son, why are they not two dis- 
tinct and different Gods ? We answer, because, while the 
Scriptures admit and assert the facts in question, they con- 
tain other representations which forbid the conclusion. " The 
first of all the commandments is," saith Jesus, " Hear, O Is- 
rael, the Lord thy God is one Lord." — " I am the Lord, and 
there is none else; there is no God beside me." — "Thou be- 
lievest that there is one God. Thou doest well," though the 
very devils believe it too. Now, wdth this additional ele- 
ment — the asserted unity of God — see what a Bible creed on 
the subject must necessarily be. If we say the Father and 
the Son are two Gods, as distinct from each other as two 
different men, the Scripture is against us, which saith that 
" God is one." If we say the Son is essentially inferior to 
the Father — that is, belongs to a lower rank in the scale of 
being — the text is against us, which ascribes all the essen- 
tialities of the divine nature, in all their literal substance and 
unity, to Christ the Son ; which is the utmost that can be 
claimed or asserted for the Father. If we say that the Fa- 
ther and the^Son divide the Godhead between them in an 
equal participation — " share and share alike," to use a legal 
phrase — or as two tenants occupy the same house, each hold- 
ing half of it — then the text is against us again, which as- 
serts that all — not part, not half, look you, but all the pleni- 
tude of the Godhead, all that it contains or signifies — resides 
substantially and literally in Christ. Finally, if we say that 
the Father and the Son are only different names for the 
same God, then the Scripture is against us again, which re- 
peatedly ascribes to them separate acts and exercises. " The 
Father judgeth no man, but committeth all judgment unto 
the Son." If these two nouns are only different names for 
the same being, then the meaning — that is, the nonsense— 
of that quotation will be, "The Father judgeth no man, but 



300 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

committeth all judgment unto himself." Says Christ, " I am 
come forth from the Father, and am come into the world ; 
again, I leave the world and go unto the Father." What 
then ? Did the Fatlier come forth from himself, and return 
to himself? Again, "I came down from heaven not to do 
my own will, but the will of him that sent me." No impli- 
cation of essential inferiority here — that is, inferiority in na- 
ture — any more than the fact, that one of two twin-brothers 
voluntarily agrees for a time to act in subserviency to the 
will of the other, implies an inferiority of nature on his part. 
But this by the way. "I came down from heaven to do, 
not my own, but the will of him who sent me." This must 
have been said w^ith reference to his divine nature, for no 
one pretends that his human nature, his bodily person, came 
down from heaven. But then there must be a personal dis- 
tinction betAveen him and the Father, unless you say that he 
was sent from heaven by himself to do, not his own will, but 
his own will ! The only possible view of the subject, then, 
if we will keep Scripture on our side, is this: The Father 
and the Son are each and equally God — not sharers, dividers, 
halvers of the Godhead, but each possessed of the whole of 
it — whereby they are one and the same in nature, essence, 
and substance ; and yet thus far distinct, that separate acts 
and exercises may be predicated of each. We repeat, this 
is the only view that steers clear of every Scripture obstacle, 
and harmonizes every Scripture statement on the subject ; 
and if you say you cannot understand this doctrine, we will 
admit this to be a valid objection to its truth, whenever you 
are prepared to assert that you believe nothing as true, that 
you do not fully understand. If you insist, further, that it 
involves a contradiction, and therefore cannot be true, that 
the Father and the Son are one in nature, the same in sub- 
stance, and yet capable of acting separately, we simply deny 
it, and assert that it involves no such thing. Had we said, 
they are one and the same in the sense in which they are 
distinct, or distinct in the sense in which they are one and 
the same — had we said, th^y arei identical and yet distinct 
in their essential being, or that they are capable and yet not 
capable of separate acts — this would, indeed, have been a 
contradiction and absurdity. But to ascribe to them an 
identity, a sameness of nature, and yet a capacity for sepa- 
rate acts — what necessary inconsistency or contradiction is 
here? '^'rue, it is inconsistent with) and qontradictory tq 



KEV. WM. B. WEED. 301 

your notions of the capacities of the human nature ; biit, we 
pray you, is that the lit measure of the divine nature ? Is 
the Godhead to be measured by a human yardstick ? 

IV. We proceed to consider the text in some of its prac- 
tical relations; and, — 

1. In that which the apostle himself suggests. This verse 
is connected, by the causal particle for^ with the preceding 
one, which reads thus : " Beware lest any man spoil you 
through philosophy and vain deceit, after the traditions of 
men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ." 
Which may be paraphrased as follows : Beware lest you be 
imposed upon by that vain and deceitful philosophy which is 
fashioned according to human opinions and carnal principles, 
and not according to the truth as it is in Jesus. Observe, 
that as the Jews w^ere in danger of being beguiled from the 
simplicity that is in Christ by their still lingering attachment 
to their ancient system of laws and ordinances, so the Greeks, 
— and such were the Colossians — were in a similar dano^er 
from the influence of that philosophy for which Greece had 
been so famous, and of which she was still so proud. In the 
days of the apostle, what Moses was to the Jews, such w^ere 
Plato and Aristotle to the Greeks ; and the mingling of their 
philosophical speculations with Christianity w^as one of the 
lirst and earliest agents of its corruption. Take a specimen 
alluded to in the latter part of this chapter. Plato taught 
that there were certain spiritual beings whom he called 
demons, one of w^hose oflaces was to present the prayers of 
men to God ; and for that reason he enjoined his disciples to 
honor and worship them. This idea was early seized upon 
by a certain class of Christian teachers, and applied to the 
angels. They carry, it is said, the Father's commands to 
the children, and the children's wants to the Father — and 
therefore they ought to be honored and worshipped, — where 
you see the evident origin of the popish doctrine of the ven- 
eration of saints and angels, because of their supposed sub- 
serviency to the spiritual interests of Christians on earth. 
To this, we suppose, the apostle refers in the 18th verse of 
this chapter — ^' Let no man beguile you of your reward, in 
a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels " — as a speci- 
men of that vain philosophy against which, in the text, he 
warns the Colossian church in the gross — Beware of it, and 
for this sufficient reason, that it is supported only by human 
opinion, and unsanctioned by Christ. " For in him dwell- 

26 



302 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

etli all the fulness of the Godhead bodily ;" and therefore 
any religious views which are inconsistent with his doctrine 
must needs be fallacious. Let the disciples of Pythagoras, 
and Plato, and the rest, make much as they will of the opin- 
ions of their masters; you have an infinitely greater Master 
than they — " in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom 
and knowledge " — whom, therefore, you have infinitely more 
reason to believe, than they have to believe theirs. An in- 
dispensable want of man, with reference to his spiritual and 
eternal interests, is an infallible guide and teacher; these 
interests are infinitely too sacred to be confided to any one 
short of that. Behold, then, the infallible and incarnate God 
that speaketh in the gospel. Every word he hath delivered 
comes to us with all the plenary authority of the Godhead. 
What more do we want ? Shall we turn from him who 
speaketh from heaven, and listen to the blind human guides 
that, in their excess of impudence, dare to contradict their 
Maker? Shall we put out the Sun, and take a parcel of 
smoking, sixpenny lamps for a light to our feet ? Shall we 
exchange an infallible guide for fallible ones — the unerring 
wisdom of him in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the God- 
head bodily, for the crippled, halting sophistry of man ? No 
— if men philosophize against the doctrines of the gospel, 
and try to prove them irrational, they must needs be wrong, 
because those doctrines have the sanction of the Infinite and 
Eternal Reason. Or, let them call spirits from the vasty deep 
to contradict the gospel. How can you believe them when 
they contradict each other — the same spirit proving as ortho- 
dox as the catechism to one inquirer, and infidel as Thomas 
Paine to another ? Yea, more — how can you believe them 
when they contradict the Eternal Spirit — when they give 
the lie to him in whom all the fulness of the Godhead dwells ? 
No, dear hearer, if you want to embark in a craft as fragile 
as that to which the infant Moses was intrusted, if you want 
to embark on a gloomy sea of doubt, in an ark of bulrushes, 
wdth no certainty where you shall land, and much more likely 
to go to the bottom than to land at all, take anybody but 
Christ for your religious guide and prophet. If you would 
be fixed on a rock that shall never be moved, believe him — 
believe the truth of which his plenary Godship is the unerr- 
ing warrant. 

2. It is safe to trust our immortal well-being in the hands 
of Christ. If, said the wily Jesuit to the German prince he 



REV^ WM. B. WEED. 303 

was trying to proselyte, if, as the consequence of believino* 
what I tell you, your soul should be endangered, I will be 
responsible for it — I will undertake to insure its safety. As 
if the tiny insect should say, if that massive tower is in dan- 
ger of falling, I will undertake to bear it up. Give me Al- 
mightiness, and nothing less, to be my soul's protector. Who 
but Godhead can make a soul ? Who but Godhead can up- 
hold its existence ? Who but Godhead can do what is a harder 
task than either ? If that soul hath become the thrall of sin, 
who but Godhead can deliver him from that bondage ? If 
that soul hath defied Heaven — broken its law, and provoked 
its wrath — who but Godhead can interpose an effectual arm 
to save it ? If Paul had not believed what he has written in 
the text, depend upon it he would never have uttered those 
words of triumphant confidence contained in the first chapter 
of his second epistle to Timothy. They are the natural corol- 
lary of what he uttereth here : " I know whom I have believed, 
and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have 
committed to him against that day " — " for in him dwelleth 
all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." So wrote the apostle 
when the sword was already sharpened that was to sever his 
head from his body, and his soul from both. And say, thou 
traveller to the flaming throne, is thy rock as his rock ? Is 
thy trust bestowed where his reposed so calmly, on the very 
verge of time ? Alas for the wretched prospect of him, be- 
tween whom and death there is but a single step, between 
whom and the second death there is no Almighty Christ! 
Oh, enviable state of him whose faith has made sure of that 
full Godhead of a soul-keeper and soul-saver; and of the jus- 
tification, sanctification, and eternal redemption of which he 
is the all-competent author and finisher ! As sure as he has 
made thorough work with the first, he can and will perfect 
the second, and insure the third. 

III. What a loadstone is here to draw forth human affec- 
tions ! It hath ever been a prevailing tendency of human 
nature — of which the polytheism once universal and still so 
extensive is a proof, because it is a consequence — to deify its 
benefactors. That practical atheist of paganism, the Roman 
Lucretius, who knew too much to be a heathen but not 
enough to be a Christian, says that the gods were the off- 
spring of human fears. It was no such thing — they were the 
offspring of human gratitude and admiration. The heathen 
Olympus was peopled by gratitude. Men distinguished for 



301 SERMOKS BY THE LATE 

their heroic exploits and public services, were, by the grate- 
ful estimation of their fellow-men, exalted into divinities, 
conceived of as free from human infii-mities and imperfec- 
tions, and so made objects of divine worship, which of course 
was nothing less than a shameless idolatry. But see how 
the gospel revelation meets and provides for this tendency 
of human nature. Are men naturally fond of deifying their 
benefactors ? Behold your greatest benefactor ready deified 
to your heads, and only waiting to be enthroned as a beloved 
and cherished deity in your hearts. Behold, he standeth 
forth in all the plenitude of personal attractions that make a 
Godhead lovely — in all the fulness of active goodness, and 
love stronger than death, to which divinity adds an infinite 
charm and value, — to challenge your devotion. How many 
new hearts shall be laid to-day upon his altar ? How many 
hearts, already kindled with such devotion, shall be inflamed 
anew by this contemplation of Him in whom dwelleth all the 
fulness of the Godhead bodily, and by whom all that fulness 
hath been so endearingly displayed in performing a Saviour's 
mighty work for you ? 



^ ♦ »• 



^^And ye are complete in himr — Col. ii. 10. 

To justify the proposition we mean to deduce from these 
words, it is needful to direct your attention to the fact that 
they were originally addressed to an infant church — a church 
which had not been in existence more than seven or eight 
years, as will appear from a comparison of dates. From the 
best lights we can obtain, we believe these Colossian Chris- 
tians were begotten in the gospel by Paul himself, subse- 
quently to the year 53. I know that this is disputed. It is 
even said that Paul had never been at Colosse at the time 
he wrote this epistle ; and this on these two grounds : First, 
because he says, in the 7th verse of the 1st chapter, "For 
this cause we also, since the day we heard it" — their love in 
the Spirit, which he had learned from Epaphras, — "do not 
cease to pray for you;" from which it is inferred that he 
knew nothing about them except by hearsay — an argument 
which is completely quashed by what we read in 1 Thess. iii. : 



KEY. WM. B. WEED. 305 

" When Timotheus came from you unto us" — just as Epa- 
phras had from the Colossians — "and brought us good 
tidings of your faith and charity, we were comforted over 
you." Now we know from the Acts that Paul had been at 
Thessalonica, and that the church there was planted by Inm ; 
and yet he uses the same form of expression as to the intelli- 
gence he received respecting their Christian virtues, as in 
the case of the Colossians. Again, it is said the 1st verse of 
the 2d chapter of this epistle — " For I would that ye knew 
what great conflict I have for you, and for them at Laodi- 
cea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh" — 
proves that the Colossians had never seen him. It obviously 
proves no such thing. " As many as have not seen my face 
in the flesh," does not include but excludes the Laodiceans 
and Colossians; for had he meant to say that all there were 
personally strangers to him, he would have used the pronoun 
your in the next verse, whereas it is their — " that their hearts 
might be comforted." "I would ye knew what conflict" — 
what care, concern — " I have for you, and for them of Lao- 
dicea," — which was close by Colosse ; — and then, as if his 
swellins: heart refused to be confined to the limits which he 
had at first prescribed to his pen — " for all the Gentile con- 
verts everywhere, even for those who have never seen me — 
that their hearts may be comforted as well as yours who 
have." These words, then, instead of proving that the Co- 
lossians were strangers to the apostle, prove just the con- 
trary. And so does the 25th verse of the 1st chapter, where 
he speaks of the " dispensation of God which is given to me 
for you, to fulfil the word of God" — that is, fully to preach 
the word of God. Can it be supposed that, having repeat- 
edly travelled over Phrygia, of which Colosse w^as a princi- 
pal city, he would neglect his commission so far as never to 
preach the gospel there? Besides, throughout this epistle 
the apostle and the Colossians are represented as taking that 
special interest in each other's aflairs which is appropriate to 
the relation we suppose to have subsisted betw^een them. 
So you find him adding the closing salutation with his own 
hand, as he did to the other churches that were planted by 
himself, and who knew his handwriting. We think, then, 
there is the best reason for believing that this church was 
one of Paul's spiritual ofispring. And then, whereas it ap- 
pears from the close of the epistle that a number of his dis- 
tinguished fellows-laborers were with him at the time, he 

26* 



306 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

associates only Timothy with himself in the opening address 
— for the probable reason that Timothy was associated with 
him when he originally preached the gospel at Colosse. But 
Timothy first became a co-laborer with him in the year 53. 
Now, as to the time when this epistle was written, the words 
" Remember my bonds" show that he was a prisoner then, 
Avhile yet it is evident that he was not entirely secluded 
from his favorite occupation, because he speaks of " Aristar- 
chus and others who are my fellow-laborers unto the king- 
dom of God" — precisely corresponding to the circumstances 
in which we find him at the close of the Acts at Rome — a 
prisoner at large in his own hired house, receiving all that 
came unto him, and preaching the kingdom of God. But 
this was in the year 60 and 61. The probability is, then, 
that this epistle was written not more than seven or eight 
years after the first planting of the gospel at Colosse. It 
was not, then, addressed to Christians who had been matured 
and rijDcned by the gracious experience of a long life, but to 
Christians in the gristle of their spiritual organization. 

The proposition, then, that we deduce from the text, is 
this : There is a sense in which every Christian, no matter 
how old or how young in grace, no matter whether he be a 
full-grown man or a babe in Christ, is complete in him. The 
verse before us immediately follows one of our recent texts ; 
and indeed in discoursing upon that, it was at first our inten- 
tion to have included, by way of inference, what is contained 
in this passage ; but we discovered that to do so would create 
a disproportion, somewhat as if we should make one of the 
porches of a building as large as the building itself Still it 
is needful to consider the two verses in their connection, in 
order to do justice to our present text. '' In him dwelleth 
all the fulness of the Godhead bodily ; and ye are complete 
in him." The word translated " complete" is the perfect 
passive participle of a verb of the same root with the noun 
in the preceding verse which is translated "fulness." So 
that the strictly literal reading would be, " In him dwelleth 
all the fulness of the Godhead bodily ; and ye have been 
made full in or by him." He is the mighty reservoir, and 
you are the little vessels that have been replenished by its 
contents. He is the great ocean, and you are the artificial 
ponds, or lakes, which are kept full by communication with 
him. All that is needful to make you theoretical and prac- 
tical adepts in the science, successful students in the mystery, 



KEV. WM. B. WEED. 307 



intelligent pilgrims in the way of godliness, religion, and 
eternS life, is abundantly supplied by him. Such is the 
sum of the text. We now proceed to particulars, and 

""TTlirfulness of knowledge that dwells in Christ, abun- 
dantly supplies his disciples with all the truth, all the inior- 
nS Si wMch is essential to their advancement and perfection 
a sits. You are aware that a large part of the New Tes- 
Jament consists of the hteral utterances of Christ himelt 
S what is the rest, but Christ speaking through his Sp iit 
to the anostles and by them to us? The inestimable value 
of tie apostol'c writings above those of all other good men 
consists in this, that they set down-not their own personal 
v^: Id sentiments, b'ut what the Holy ^^^.tjesonl^e^ 
Nor was he an ultimate agent in this matter, for saith the 
Saviour-" When he, the Spirit of truth is come he will 
gu de you into all truth ; for he shall not speak of himself 
Lt whatever he shall hear, that shall he «Fak- H^ Jd 
olorifv me, for he shall receive of mine, and shall show it 
Into YOU " With a perfect fitness, then, that second volume 
of thi Bible, which, aside from its own revelations contains 
all the essence of th^ first, is entitled The New Testament of 
oui- Lmd and Saviour Jesus Christ It is not moi-e proper 
to style a certain other work Dwight's Theolog>^ than it s 
to style this book Jesus Christ's Testament. He was pei- 
fectl/ entitled to take a copyright ol it ^s author, for the 
whole of it came from Mm, from his o^n hps whfie he le- 
mained on earth, or through the agency of his Spirit aftei he 
weTt to heaven.' But now the New Testament - Jhe com^ 
plete institute of the Christian religion; not a fact, not a 
f nth, not a doctrine which pertains to that superlatrve 
science, but is contained between its covers. ]* J^^s Paul s 
whole stock in trade, when he went to found a schoo ot 
SSst, a household of faith a gospel kingdom m the nch 

proud licentious capital of Achaia ^Ig^o™?/'^;^?,^." t of 

earned in the heathen schools of Tarsus, and at the eet ot 

Gamaliel, "I determined to know nothing among you, save 

Jesus Christ, and him crucified;" Jf V^^.V^^wS" aU tC 
what we learn from this volume. And ^ft^iswa^ all that 
was indispensable for him to know in order to teach the 
science of religion, it is all that is mdispensab e toj "^^^ 
know In order°to practise it. This fact indeed ^s wi bout a 
parallel. Where is the other science that can be thoroughly 



308 SERMONS BY THE LATE 



learned from a single text-book? How supei-fieial mn,t !,;« 
knowledge be of astronozny, chemistry, ZZl'^J^^f^ 
Avho knew notli.ng about them, except ^vhat mi<.ht be Team' 
ed from a smgle author! How little qualified' would t^t 
nan be for the practice of law, or medicine, who hid made 
lumselt acquainted with the works of only one lelal or medi 
and'ir'"'-,.^. T' •"'^^"^^'^ *« P"'-^»^ the fomS proe In 

;s^\oit^adm;;t:VtTtr^ 

single glorious Author, which one c^nl^^t^^^^^^^^^^^^ 
hours (I speak from actual experiment) contains «lt).of- 

ot trod, in the way of hfe; a work so complete that thp 
dread anathema ot" having his name blotted out of thfbook 
of life IS denounced against the man who presumes o add a 

i\rciZn\r2ttrdV"i^^^^^^ 

confined to that lonelyTe^Iacfp^: t^n^ ^^^^^^ 

rnS' L^d'^ti^p^h^ed^-rds^^^^^^^^^ Slt^pt^? 
tha? bo^k! ^s^:^ t ss-tikt'hir?;^^ ^" 

cS^J! completely justified in and through the fulness of 

gailty,but to pronounce the accused guiSess ^« He th ^ 

i" Si at.b"'''' ^"'^ '^ ''''' condeSthe rijlo fs' 
aie both an abomination to the Lord"— f lint i« p^f iT • 

nates alike the magistrate who tcquits t le ISlt? and :"bo 

mean to a qn t h 'X" '"^oi-^r."'""'"*'' "^"^"^ ^^^y^ 
short of the\lo y of God •" and « the wif^r'^'^^ f "*^ '^"™" 

v^;? Th': r '^'^ <i-ionthoi'L^r:jS^^^^^ sr ^2 

" Who " saithX^rnir'*' '^^?,' '''''^'''' s^If-abominaSo 
w no, saith the apostle, shall lay any thing to the char<.e 



REV. WM. B. WEED. . 309 

of God's elect? It is God that justifieth." So, then, to be 
justified is to be placed in such a state, in relation to the 
divine law, that no one can rightfully bring any charge 
against us. But the question is, " How can this be done ?" 
It is certain that that man's ow^n fellow-creatures, and his own 
conscience, can bring any quantity of charges against him. 
It is certain that his own sins, which have gone before him 
to judgment, are so many charges self-pleaded before the 
veiy throne of God against him. The question is, how^ can 
all those accusing mouths be stopped, as completely as now 
they stop his mouth and lay him in prostrate guilt before 
Jehovah ? This must be, before he can be justified. Say you 
that God may mercifully pardon him? But pardon is not 
acquittal, and acquittal only is justification. Besides, to par- 
don him would not remove his guilt — it would only save 
him from the penalty ; his guilt would be the same as ever. 
One of our fellow-citizens has been justly convicted of 
forgery — the proper authority pardons him — that saves him 
from jail, but does it exculpate him from guilt ? Has not 
everybody a right to call him a forger still, with all the vil- 
lainous meaning that belongs to the term ? But the question 
now is, to place a moral being, a sinner for life, in such a re- 
lation to the law and justice of God that he shall stand 
completely exculpated — that notwithstanding all his past 
transgressions nobody can bring any charge against him 
without injustice. What then? Say you, he must forsake 
his evil w^ays and do right ? Suppose he does. Can he ever 
do more than his duty? Did a holy angel ever? How, 
then, by the strictest course of rectitude, is he to earn an 
exculpation of his former sins, so as to stand completely ac- 
quitted of them? A man defies the law of the land by 
thefts, robberies, &c., for twenty years. He then completely 
changes his course, and becomes a good and law-obeying 
citizen. Does that free him from the blame of his former 
violations of it ? May he not still be justly tried and pun- 
ished for them ? Finally, shall God undertake, as a matter 
of pure and absolute sovereignty, to pronounce the sinner 
acquitted, guiltless, simply because he pleases to do so ? Can 
it please an immutable God to contradict himself, or the God 
of truth to declare a lie ? Can the Almighty cause that to 
be which is not? He made a world by the w^ord of his 
power. But he could easier make ten thousand worlds than 
cause the sinner who has broken his law, and been condemned 



SIO 



SERMONS BY THE LATK 



by his justice, to become a legally innocent person, by the 
word ot his power. In order to do that, he must annihilate 
fu^ rTv * l^eaven and eaith shall pass away sooner than 
that sliall be. Again then the question recurs. How shall this 
process of j ustification be effected ?— which the gospel answers 
by making Christ and the sinner change places. It puts 
Christ m the sinner's place, as a victim of transgression. As 
such he makes a complete atonement for it by his' sufferings 
and death. And now it provides the sinner with the hand 
ot taith to lay hold on this atoning Christ, and become, in a 
legal pomt ot view, absorbed in his identity, so that the eve 
ot law and justice doth not distinguish each from either, but 
accounts both one. And thus the sinner is put in Christ's 
place, as regards his legal attitude; the justice and the law 
ot Cod has no more against him than it has against Christ • 
in him the man is completely justified. What he could not 
have done lor himself in an eternity of eternities, Christ did 
tor him in six hours, and God does for Christ's sake in one 
moment. For the process of justification is, in the nature of 
the case, an instantaneous one. There can be no such thins 
^Lh?" ^if '^ ^ acquitted and partly condemned-that is, 
othe/ °T?^ ^"?, Pf % g»iItless-you are all one or the 
othei. The wrath of God abideth on you because of your 
transgressions, or his justifying grace because of Christ. 
Condemned by our sins, we have war with God; justified by 

ff i '?/!'"' S,*""'*' T^ ^""''^ P<^^«« ^'th God ; and now who 
X- .... ^ondemneth ? We stop his mouth with—" It is 

STJT-f'f-\ "l"*^ "'''^' ^^°"'" fello^^-n^en, if conscience, 
h..I^^ '. f '"''' ^^^^. ^"^ *^"g "^ tlie "ature of law- 
bieaking to charge against us, we tell them to brin<^ that 
charge, it they dare, against our glorious daysman, for not 
havmg^ performed his atoning work with sufficient thorough- 
ness ; for as comp ete as is that atonement, so complete is Sur 
justification that is based thereon. i' « i* oui 

riPVw^'T?^''?^" •' completely adopted as a child of 
God, through the fulness of Christ's power and love. « He 
that beheveth that Jesus is the Christ, is born of God.'' 
What is the meamng of that text ? Is he born of God b^- 

IZl'oi'cT'V- ^'' '* '*"• -F' "^^'^^-^^ because he is 
boin of God It IS the same as if one should say, "He that 
breathes IS born," literally; the fact that he has begun to 

"The fn^t^fl*"^^*-''' '' ^™ "''^ ^ ««"*'^"^^ ^-^tence! 
The fiuit of the Spn-.t is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, 



EEV. WM. B. WEED. 311 

meekness, gentleness, goodness, faith." Faith is one of the 
fruits of the Spirit, one of the results of regeneration, one of 
the effects of the new birth. Let us go tothe bottom of the 
matter, and see that poor soul — the counterpart of the fabled 
rebel that defied the gods, and was crushed beneath Mount 
Etna for it — overwhelmed with the burden of his sin and 
guilt, prostrate at the foot of the Son of David, saying, 
"Lord, save me!" And he does save him. That power 
that made the widow's son of Nain sit up alive upon his 
bier, and made dead Lazarus come forth from his grave, 
rolls back, by the might of his Spirit, the stone that covers 
the mouth of his tomb, and makes him awake, arise, stand 
up and live, in that new and Sj^irit-given life, that heavenly 
nature, which is assimilated to God's and Christ's. And, as 
the first exercise of that new nature, he turns and believes 
on its glorious Author, embraces him in faith and love as his 
Saviour, Lord, and all. At once the great Saviour falleth in 
love with him, as his own incipient likeness, and the fruit of 
the travail of his soul ; and he taketh the new-begotten one 
from the very cradle of his new birth, and presents him to 
God the Father, saying, " Behold my brother." And God 
the Father ratifies the adoption, saying, "Amen! Behold 
my son, beloved with the love wherewith I have loved thee." 
And there is no halfway work here. He who said of his 
first disciples, weak, timid, faint-hearted as they were, " Be- 
hold my mother, and sister, and brother," fully recognizes that 
relation in all whom he hath begotten from the dead. He 
loves them as such, and means to love them to the end. 
Christ has no half brothers. And because he completely 
owns them as brethren, God the Father fully owns them as 
sons. ' The Spirit, from the moment that their hearts are 
made to feel his regenerating power, beareth witness with 
their spirit that they are the children of God. Now say, ye 
parents, is there any half-way work in parental feelings? 
Observe the distinction. Christians are called " citizens of 
the commonwealth of faith" to distinguish them from the 
kingdom of Satan, which includes the rest of the world ; but 
in their personal relation to God, they are called children. 
Now, every human being who is born within the limits of 
this commonwealth is by birth a citizen of it ; but years 
must pass away before he will be practically a full citizen, 
entitled to all the rights of citizenship — voting at elections, 
holding office, cfcc. "But how long after that child of yours 



3L2 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

was born, before you gave him in your heart the full, prac- 
tical place of one ? Did you wait till he was grown up, till 
his faculties were developed, till he was capable of being of 
some positive use to you, before you cared much about him ? 
Ah ! did not your heart yearn over him in his very cradle, in 
the full spring-tide of a parent's love ? — a poor, helpless thing, 
to be sure ; but it was just the fact that he loas so helpless, 
and so dependent on you, that all the more endeared him to 
you. Not less doth the bosom of the Father yearn over his 
adoptive babes in Christ. It is sheer legalism to suppose that 
they have got to grow into perfect angels, before he will give 
them the children's place in his home and heart ; that he hath 
no more than a cold and grudging regard for them at pres- 
ent, because of their imperfections. He loves them now, 
with all the power of an eternal afiection, because they are 
his children, adopted as such out of his infinite grace in 
Jesus Christ; and he loves them in spite of their imperfec- 
tions, because they are his children. As we learn from the 
apostle that the Jews, who certainly had very little in them- 
selves to recommend them, are "beloved for their fathers' 
sake ;" even so the weakest, frailest, most insignificant soul 
that was ever born of the Spirit, is beloved of God, after 
such a fashion as no angel is, for his great Brother's sake. 

IV. Every Christian is complete in the motives and the 
means of personal holiness, through the fulness of the grace 
of Christ. 

1. As to the former point, we need only to revert to what 
we have already offered on this occasion. There are certain 
states of society where it is justly observed that the lower 
classes have no external motive to exert themselves in the 
way of improving their minds and hearts, because, to what- 
ever perfection they may attain in either respect, the exclu- 
sive aristocracy, who compose the upper class, will still frown 
upon them, and deny them access to their own proud circle. 
Now, of that society whereof God Almighty is head su- 
preme, the Christian belonged originally to that w^hich, not 
conventionally, but rightfully and justly, is to be designated 
as the very lowest class — the class of rebels and of convicts 
— lowest in the social scale, according to the most rational 
and legitimate estimate — lowest in point of moral character. 
Left to himself, he could never rise ; he could only sink, and 
sink forever. But, justified by faith that is in Jesus Christ, 
his sins all cancelled, ignored forever by the Judge of all, 



KEY. WM. B. WEED. 313 

the moral disqualification wliich would have kept him down 
forever is removed, and the voice which pronounces him 
justified, saith, " Come up higher." And how potently is 
that summons reinforced, when the Spirit of Christ witness- 
eth with his spirit that he is a child of God ! Raised, as in 
a moment, from the lowest to the very uppermost circle of 
the moral universe, become a member of the royal family of 
heaven itself — that sudden and astounding elevation would 
infallibly turn his head, but for the counteractive, humiliating 
consideration that it is all for Christ's sake, and not his own. 
But what motives is he under now, to bestir himself to be- 
come worthy of the unparalleled vocation wherewith he is 
called — to make one in the very household of the great God ! 
If a king should adopt a beggar, would it not place the lat- 
ter under a most powerful impulse to acquire the accomplish- 
ments appropriate to his exalted distinction ? And if that 
more and worse than beggar — that hell- doomed convict — 
hath, through the grace of Christ, been adopted into the 
family circle of the King of kings, is not here a motive to 
strain every nerve in the pursuit of those moral accomplish- 
ments, that likeness to the great Adopter, which may make 
him meet for this august association ? Woe to the child by 
natural birth, who disgraces an illustrious father! But a 
thousand times woe to me, if I prove myself unworthy of 
that glorious Father who for Jesus' sake hath adopted me 
out of the scum and filth of the devil's family, into his own! 
2. Not less is he completely provided in Christ with the 
means of sanctification. These means are, the truth revealed 
by Christ ; the providential arrangements of his life, of which 
Christ, who is head over all things, is the author; and the grace 
which makes them efiectual for this purpose, which is j)ro- 
cured by the intercession of Christ. To the sinner, divine 
truth, the dispensations of divine providence, are so much 
water spilled on the barren rock. To the grace-prepared 
and quickened soil of the believer, they are as the dew that 
makes him grow as the lily, and cast forth his roots as Leb- 
anon, stimulating his heavenly graces, and destroying all that is 
evil in him, till his soul becomes a second Eden where the Lord 
God walketh in divine, beatifying complacence, not merely 
"in the cool of the day," but morning, noon, and night, con- 
tinually — till, complete in Christ as regards the means of sanc- 
tification, he becomes complete, through them, in sanctification 
itself. The sum is this : In a state of law without grace, a man 

27 



314 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

is complete in himself in virtue, holiness, and in the favor of 
God, as long as he perfectly obeys the law. The moment 
that he breaks it, he is complete in sin and hopeless misery. 
In a state of grace, the moment he believes in Christ he is 
complete in him — completely adopted, completely justified. 
Some speak of this process as though it were a gradual one— 
the man advances by degrees into a state of justification, 
becomes by degrees entitled to be called a child of God. 
But this idea is unknown to the gospel, which knows but of 
two classes, saints and sinners, believers and unbelievers, 
children of God, and children of wrath. It is unknown to 
the English language, or to any other language. For who 
ever heard of an accused person half acquitted and half con- 
demned ? Who ever heard of one human being sustaining 
to another the relation of a half-way child and a half-way 
stranger ? Besides, suppose the man should die in the midst 
of this process, almost, but not altogether a child of God — 
partly, but not completely justified — what is to become of 
him ? Shall part of him be sent to heaven and the rest to 
hell ? But away with this ungospel absurdity. Every man is 
in Christ, a believer in him, or not ; if he is, he is a new crea- 
ture, born of God, justified by faith, and if he dies the next 
moment, however imperfect, he shall go to heaven for Christ's 
sake. He who gave the endearing name of brother to these 
disciples, one of whom he knew would deny him with curs- 
ing, and all forsake him in his hour of need — think you that 
if that day, when he bestowed upon them that fraternal ap- 
pellation, one or all of them had given up the ghost — think 
you that when their naked spirits came to stand before an 
adjudging God, their gracious Master would have belied his 
own words, and declared, " I never knew you " ? Would he 
not have owned them as brethren there ? 

The things which we have now delivered, we desire to 
advertise you, can be of no practical use except to one class of 
persons. We are perfectly aware that they afford an admir- 
able bed for the lazy Christian to sleep himself to death upon, 
admirable weapons for the presumptuous Christian to com- 
mit suicide with ; — but they can be of no salutary use ex- 
cept to the perfect Christian in the gospel sense of the term 
— not the perfectly sinless, but the perfectly sincere ; the con- 
sciously imperfect, yet consciously hearty lover of Christ, 
and believer in him. We wrote this sermon just to comfort 
your hearts and confirm your faith. We Avant you to under- 



I 



REV. WM. B. AVEED. 315 

stand that if you are a believer in Christ, though of but a 
year's or a month's standing, you have just as much to do 
with him and he with you as if you had half a century of a 
thoroughly exemplary Christian course to show. We want 
you to understand that if you are a believer in Christ, your 
sins are all as completely cancelled as those of the just made 
perfect are. We want you to understand that if you are a 
believer in Christ, not Paul the apostle on his sun-bright 
throne is more completely owned by God the Father as his 
son beloved, than thou. Has thy faith revealed to thee thy 
own un worthiness, the weakness and wickedness of thy heart? 
But let thine eye rest and revel on the blessed vision of its 
perfect complement, which that faith no less reveals in Christ. 
Saith the devil, " You are a poor, sinful, worthless creature ?" 
Tell him, " Thou liest, for I stand complete in a rich, all- 
righteous, and all-worthy Christ." Stand, therefore, in his 
strength and grace, and, equipped and corroborated thereby, 
pursue the glorious course, and achieve the perfect character 
of a child of heaven — looking unto Jesus, and sure to find 
his present aid at every step. 



''^ He hath made every thing beautiful in his time^^ — Eccl. 
iii. 11. 

It would engross the whole of the discourse which we 
mean to found upon this text, if we were to undertake a full 
definition of its principal word, or of the noun substantive 
from which it is derived; for the properties in which the 
essence of beauty consists are almost innumerable. We may 
therefore define it in general, as whatever property in any 
object of sense, or thought, is a source of pleasurable feeling. 
The term, originally restricted to objects of sight, has by an 
easy transition been applied to those which address them- 
selves to the other senses, and to the understanding. It is 
as fit to ascribe the attribute of beauty to the melodious 
sounds which please the ear, as to the fair prospect which 
delights the eye ; and the term is in neither case more ap- 
propriate than to the thoughts and sentiments of an intelli- 
gent mind, instinct with the winning grace of truth, and set 



316 SKRMONS BY THK LATE 

off by the attractive garb of a felicitous phraseology ; or to 
the charming and endearing quahties of an intelligent mind, 
redolent of its parental divinity. ''Beautiful," saith the 
Scripture, " the joy of the whole earth, is Zion." It doubt- 
less was so to every beholder ; and not less beautiful is the 
poetry of Hillhouse's description of it. There was beauty in 
the music of the harj) of David. There was beauty of a 
higher order in that heaven-patterned character, that pure 
and holy heart of his, of which the hallowed music of the 
ten-stringed instrument was the audible mouthpiece. With 
this word or two of reminder as to the comprehensive mean- 
ing of its leading term — applicable to every thing of which our 
senses, our understanding, our moral perception have cogniz- 
ance ; to things visible and invisible ; to moral qualities and 
moral actions; in short, to every thing that imparts any 
species of pleasure and delight — we will now endeavor to 
unfold the text in the lengtli and breath of its compass of 
thought, so far as time will permit. 

I. If the Divine Being, in reference to the attitude which 
he maintains towards his various creatures, is appropriately 
styled the God of love, not less as the author of creation 
may he appropriately be styled the God of beauty. If love is 
the secret of all his ways, beauty is the watchword in all 
his works. We said the properties in which this latter 
quality consists, have an almost endless variety. And what 
is this but saying that the Infinite Architect has lavished 
beauty with an unsparing hand and in endless forms upon 
the several specimens of his workmanship, excluding not 
only deformity, but even monotony of comeliness ? " We 
gaze," says one respecting a beautiful piece of sculpture, — 
" we gaze and turn away, we know not where, dazzled and 
drunk with beauty ;" — and wherein did its beauty consist, 
but in its resemblance to the living specimens of the Creator's 
moulding? The w^riter we just quoted confesses elsewhere 
in sober prose, that he never saw a painting or a sculpture 
which is lit to be compared with the actual subjects it 
attempted to embody. Art is sometimes called creative. 
It is so only in a low comparative, or in a highly metaphori- 
cal sense. To call it literally so, is an impudent falsehood. 
Art can create nothing; it can only imperfectly copy the 
goodly models furnished by the sole Creator, and copied 
by him only from his own infinite invention. I say hnper- 
fectly. Go to the great storehouses of art in Rome or 



KEY. WM. B. WEED. 317 

« 

Florence ; survey the figures, the landscapes, and what not, 
carved or painted by the first masters; and then go into 
Nature's picture-gallery, and see the originals instinct with 
life, formed, painted, vitalized by the great Master ; drink 
in the thousand streams of beauty that flow in, not to one, but 
every sense, from a thousand varied fountains which he has 
set in play — and then say, what think you of his imitators ? 
Are they any thing more than feeble plagiarists upon God's 
fair originals ? yet all their power to minister to our gratifica- 
tion, arises from the fact that they are so much as that. And 
here lies the principal secret of the poet's power. He must 
— so say the received canons of criticism — draw his imagin- 
ative drapery, his imagery, not from artificial life, or artificial 
objects, but from nature. And wherefore ? The answer is 
an affirmation of what is expressed in the first six words of 
the text. The province of the poet is to please ; that which 
is most beautiful, pleases most ; but the selectest images of 
beauty are to be sought and found, not in the pretentious 
but prosaic show-cases of art, but in the living storehouse of 
nature — not among the works of man, but the works of 
God. But we need not enlarge upon this point. At least 
as regards the general idea contained in the text, our 
consciousness bears witness that Solomon was right. Con- 
geniality of spirit Avith what is fair and comely, a taste for 
beauty, an aversion from deformity, is one of man's most 
humanizing features. It is an especial index of the power 
and goodness of the Deity, that he has replenished his 
visible creation with so many objects that minister to that 
taste, and so few that revolt it ; with so much of beauty, so 
little of deformity. 

II. We proceed from the general truth to a more particu- 
lar one. There is a beauty which consists not merely in the 
sensible attractions of objects, but essentially in their fitness 
and adaptation to appropriate ends ; and to this the Divine 
Being, in all the changes and varieties which obtain in his 
natural economy, has an undeviating eye. Variety, at least 
in whatever addresses itself to the outward sense, is indispen- 
sable to permanent gratification. The extreme of perfection 
in things visible, Avould tire us at length, if put in the per- 
petual stereotype of an unchanged monotony. Hence the 
divine ordination is continually changing the scene upon us, 
not, as people change the fashions of their dress, merely for 
the sake of novelty, without perhaps gaining any thing 

27* 



318 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

either in point of utility or comeliness : if God fits up nature 
in a different fashion at different times and seasons, variety, 
though one, is only one result; utility is always another; 
and the beauty which consists in utility, of course a third. 
Hence, though one aspect of nature is more charming to the 
natural sense than another, the latter may compensate for it 
in the seasonable beauty, the beauty of fitness, which it pre- 
sents to the understanding. Day hath its external attrac- 
tions, and so has night ; and be it that the former surpass 
the latter, yet in other points of comparison the balance is 
ever between them. Each is equally welcome as a grateful 
variety to the other, and both are equally necessary to us 
with reference to the most important purposes of our physi- 
cal being. A sky of stainless azure, glowing with unob- 
structed sunlight, has more of beauty for the eye than the 
same sky surcharged with watery vapor, dripping with 
rain, wrapping the face of the sun in its mantle of clouds, 
and shedding its sombre hue over all the landscape. Yet 
who but children deprived of their out-door sports, or grown- 
up children disappointed of their pleasure excursion, find 
fault with this aspect of nature, or fail to see in it, as w^ell as 
in the former, a positive and palpable beauty of fitness of 
adaptation to our material welfare ? The flowers of spring 
are fairer to look upon than the fruits — its delicate blades, 
than the brown and ripened corn of autumn ; its living ver- 
dure hath a more grateful charm than the snowy pall of win- 
ter ; and the soft music with which it vocalizes the air, the 
grove, the orchard, the soft w^hisper of its breezes, the gentle 
murmur of its unimprisoned streams, are more welcome to 
the ear than December's stormy blasts. But what then? 
Are you sentimentalist enough to wish the four seasons were 
all merged and fused into spring — a whole year of nothing 
but flowers, and springing blades, and aerial music, and 
whispering tunes ? Are you sure you would not get tired 
of it before the first year was over ? Are you sure that 
much of the charm which it has for you, does not arise from 
the fact that it comes but once a year ? And sentimentalism 
apart, and looking at the subject with the eye of reason, are 
you not perfectly sensible that, admitting this season bids 
higher than any other in point of external beauty, yet every 
other has an intrinsic beauty of its own — a beauty of adap- 
tation to the external constitution of man, his wants, his 
comfort, and enjoyment, to which every one of them in its 



RKV. WM. B. WEED. 319 

several variety is indispensable as this, and which as loudly 
uttereth speech concerning the divine wisdom and benevo- 
lence as the more than bridal vestures with which he adorns, 
the many-scented fragrance with which he incenses, and the 
infinite chorus of tuneful throats with which he ushers in this 
favorite of the year ? Thus, then, to the taste for the beauti- 
ful, which is an original prerogative of man, all the works of 
God have a proper adaptation. Taken in its more compre- 
hensive sense, there is not a single aspect or phenomenon of 
his natural economy but harmonizes with that taste. Those 
which in themselves have in this respect the least pretension, 
yet are gems of beauty to the eye of an enlightened under- 
standing w^hen seen in the setting of their attending circum- 
stances, their purpose, and their end. 

III. Now, the same is true of whatever he doeth in the 
economy of his providence. Here, too, he hath made 6 very 
thing beautiful in its time. And this doubtless is the ulti- 
mate and principal idea which the writer of the text had in 
his mind, though for obvious reasons he gives it the form of 
a more comprehensive statement. He begins the chapter 
by saying, " To every thing there is a season, and a time to 
every purpose under the heaven : a time to be born, and a 
time to die ; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that 
which is planted ; a time to weep, and a time to laugh ; a 
time to get, and a time to lose ; a time to love, and a time 
to hate." Some of the events and changes enumerated are 
purely the act of God ; others depend more on the will of 
man : but all are determined by the divine counsel. Now, 
the ultimate teaching of the text is, that to every one of 
these changes and vicissitudes of life, the beauty of a wise 
and benevolent adaptation appertains ; and he manifestly uses 
the comprehensive expression, " He hath made every thing," 
in order to include the phenomena of his natural economy, 
where we readily assent to the truth of his proposition, with 
a view to make that assent a stepping-stone to the recogni- 
tion of its truth in the economy of providence. In explana- 
tion, observe — 

1. The difficulty of perceiving the beautiful fitness of 
many of God's ways of providence is that which is indicated 
in the concluding clause of this verse : " No man can find 
out the work that God maketh, from the beginning to the 
end." You cannot perceive the excellence of a picture that 
is half painted, or the architectural symmetry of an edifice 



320 SPJRMONS BY THE LATE 

that is half completed. In order to this, you must see the 
one and the other in its perfected state. But we see almost 
none of the works of providence in their perfected state, 
where we can judge of them as a whole ; we see them only 
in a half-finished state. We see neither the beginning nor 
the end, but only the middle — the actual process as it is 
passing before us. We find the Divine Being carrying on 
various providential plans in relation to ourselves and others 
— in relation to families, nations, the world at large ; but we 
do not see the wise and benevolent counsels in which they 
originated, nor the wise and benevolent results they are in- 
tended to develop. Hence, in many of the phenomena they 
exhibit, in many of the vicissitudes they involve, judging of 
them independently in themselves considered, we find much 
that to our apprehension is repulsive and revolting, and noth- 
ing of the moral fitness and beauty which would be at once 
perceptible in them if viewed in connection with all their 
antecedents and all their consequents. In a word, as we see 
God's Avays in part, we judge of them in part, and therefore 
often disparagingly and unjustly. 

2. Now, to correct this unjust estimate of the ways of 
Providence, let us recur to the analogy of nature. Here we 
are presented with perpetual changes, alternations of the 
most opposite description — some of them far less congenial 
to our animal sensations, less friendly to our immediate per- 
sonal comfort, enjoyment, interest ; yet we do not complain 
of them as simple evils : we recognize their fitness, we ac- 
knowledge that all of them are good in their place. " The 
light is good, and a pleasant thing it is to behold the sun ;" 
but we do not therefore say that darkness is evil, or quarrel 
with night because half the time she displaces the genial em- 
pire of the luminary of day with her " rayless majesty, her 
ebon throne, and leaden sceptre." Our senses all leap up in 
delighted exhilaration to greet the smiling face of an un- 
clouded sky; but we do not quarrel with God when he 
drapes that sky in blackness, and turns it into a cloudy cis- 
tern. If at this glad season, when the year renews its youth, 
when 

" From the moist meadow to the wither'd hiU, 
Led by the breeze, the vivid moisture runs, 
And swells and deepens to the cherished eye ; — 

And the juicy groves 

Put forth their buds, unfolding by degrees, 
Till the whole leafy forest stands display'd 



KEY. WM. B. WEED. 321 

In full luxuriance to the sighing gales— 

If man superior walks 
Amid the glad creation, musing praise, 
And looking lively gratitude ;" — 

say ye that when — 

" Dread Winter spreads his latest glooms, 
And reigns tremendous o'er the conquered year," 

these musings of praise behoove to cease, and that look of 
lively gratitude to be exchanged for one of mortification and 
complaint ? ISTot at all. For the latter season, in many re- 
spects, is the direct antithesis of the former : and so in the 
other vicissitudes of nature before mentioned, you recognize 
the footsteps of divine goodness. And why ? Because you 
see them ; because you know, as a matter of experience, that 
all these vicissitudes, night as well as day, storm as well as 
sunshine, winter with its influences as well as spring, are in- 
dispensable on various accounts to the well-being of man. 
You are so satisfied of this that, if one should complain of 
these arrangements, and find fault with God for not excluding 
them from his natural economy, you would call him a short- 
sighted fool. 

Now, be it that the end and purpose which he has in view 
in the vicissitudes which he permits in your providential lot, 
is not always so palpable to your understanding as in the 
foregoing cases, — yet that there is such an end and purpose 
you have the infallible means of knowing, and also the nature 
and complexion of it. " I form the light and create dark- 
ness" — in the providential as well as in the natural world. 
"I make peace and create evil," — providential as well as 
natural. '' I the Lord do all these things" — author of all the 
events which befall us. But infinite wisdom does nothino: 
w^ithout a meaning intended and proposed ; and that mean- 
ing, that end of all his providential doings is thus expressed 
by the apostle : " We know that all things work together 
for good to them that love God." Therefore, unless you 
assert that experience is more reliable than the w^ord of God 
— that the testimony of observation deserves more credit 
than the testimony of Heaven, — you must admit that there 
is at least as good reason to acquiesce in the fitness of God's 
providential as in the fitness of his natural arrangements — at 
least as good reason to acknowledge the hand of divine be- 
nevolence in all the changes of our temporal fortune as in all 
the changes of the material world. If the eye of sense per- 



322 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

ceives and recognizes the natural beauty of all God's visible 
works, — if the eye of reason perceives and recognizes — where 
sense demurs — the beautiful fitness and adaptation to human 
welfare of the various ]3henomena of nature, — even so, in 
those dealings of God with man which, to sense and feehng, 
'' are not joyous but grievous," and to reason inscrutable, 
the eye of faith, enlightened by the unerring testimony of 
divine truth, may see and recognize such a pristine adapta- 
tion to the welfare of the individual subject of them — such a 
positive tendency to work for his good, as shall constrain 
him to confess that the ways of Providence are all beautiful 
in their time, and that the God of 2:>rovidence, as well as the 
God of niature, hath done all things well. 

I, If, then, your life has had its chilling, dreary, winter 
days, as well as its vernal, balmy, joyous ones ; if the bright 
sunlight of happiness which a smiling Providence has shed 
upon your dwelling has been variegated by clouds of sorrow 
and tempests of calamity ; if the light and gladness of hopes 
realized, success achieved, profitable enterprises accomplished, 
has been alternated by the darkness of disappointment, the 
gathering gloom of misfortune, — it is because that, as truly 
as in the case of those natural phenomena from which we 
borrow our imagery, it was best that it should be so. I 
mean best on the whole. Do you take our meaning ? That 
rain-storm, the other day, may have been, in some respects, 
a cross to you. It disappointed you of a journey of business 
or pleasure. It kept you idle within doors, when it would 
have been more pleasant to you to have been abroad. But 
it more than compensated for this in watering and fertihzing 
your fields, and crowning them w4th ultimate plenty. You 
found discomfort in the sharp weather, the pinching frosts of 
last winter; but you are all the better for it now. You 
breathe more freely ; your nerves are more elastic ; you are 
more vigorous in body, freer in pulse, higher in blood, from 
the bracing tonic which that rugged season administered to 
you. And so, whatever pain, discomfort, suffering, you have 
experienced, when the face of Providence has been clothed 
in frowns and darkness, are more than compensated in their 
intended benefit in promoting the permanent health and 
welfare of your soul, and working out in it " the peaceable 
fruits of righteousness." And what a blessing to realize 
this truth — to see, to feel that one bright monotony of life is 
no more desirable with reference to your highest interests, 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 323 

than one unvarying vernal monotony throughout the year is 
to your temporal well-being ; that present adversity is, on 
the whole, just as good for you as former prosperity ; that 
the misfortune of to-day is just as good for you as the success 
of yesterday ; that it is just as good for you now to be tem- 
porally afflicted as it was heretofore to be temporally blessed ! 
Yet in order to see thus, feel thus, it is only necessary to 
believe the single immutable truth we have just quoted from 
the revelation of God — that " all things shall work together 
for good to them that love him." And how much of heart- 
hardening dissatisfaction, how much presumptuous fretting 
against the Lord might be saved ; and how much of that 
permanent benefit to your soul which arises from humbling 
one's self beneath his mighty hand might be secured, if, with 
your eye of faith on that sacred truth, you would learn to 
say of the vicissitudes of providence, as heartily as you do of 
the varieties of the seasons, " These, as they change, Almighty 
Father, these are but the varied God :" the light and the 
darkness of my temporal lot, " every joy that crowns my 
days, and every pain I bear," are full — ^both full of thee — full 
of thy goodness, full of thy love. 

II. We proceed to an application of another part of our 
subject. We said that man can produce nothing which shall 
possess the genuine property of natural beauty, except by 
copying God's patterns. It is no less true that he can origi- 
nate nothing which shall possess the attribute of moral fit- 
ness and beauty, except as far as he adheres to God's known 
example, or the rules and standards of his word. Here, too, 
he must be God's imitator and pupil, doing as he has done, 
or doing as he directs ; or he is sure to produce caricatures 
and monsters. Yonder are king and nobles lording it over 
the mass of the people, who look up to them as little less 
than demigods ; and some call this a beautiful arrangement 
— a marvellous fitness of subordination among the different 
ranks of civil society. But is this like God ? The only civil 
government which he ever organized was, in its temporal 
aspects, rigorously based on the principle of republican 
equality. Yonder is an individual owning some hundreds of 
his fellow-creatures, soul and body, and living at his ease on 
the fruits of their toil ; and some call this a beautiful arrange- 
ment, essential to the perfection of society. But is it a God- 
like arrangement ? Is it modelled after the principles of his 
revealed truth ? Behold a single bolt from the magazine of 



324 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

that truth demolish it to its foundation : " Whatsoever ye 
would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." 
Set summations of the law and the prophets side by side 
with this "beautiful arrangement," and see how the latter 
becomes a hideous moral nondescript. Here, then, is the 
test by which we are to try the works and inventions of man, 
the enterprises he sets on foot, the institutions he establishes, 
the books he writes, the acts he does. Are they in harmony 
with God's patterns? If their principles are inconsistent 
with those which govern his recorded doings, or which are 
inculcated in his recorded word, then there is no form nor 
comeliness in them. Moral deformity is their character ; and 
moral blindness must be a part of ours, if we approve, ad- 
mire, or sanction them. 

III. Man himself hath nothing of the essential beauty 
which is appropriate to an intelligent being, except so far as 
he is a copy, an imitation, a likeness of God. We said that 
beauty is an attribute of all God's created works. To this, 
man was originally no exception. Says the author of our 
text, in the last verse of his 7th chapter, "Lo, this only have 
I found, that God hath made man upright." Will you allow 
us to direct your attention to the fact that the original He- 
brew word for " upright" is the very same which in our text 
is translated "beautiful." "Lo, this have I found, that God 
hath made man beautiful ;" of which the meaning is that he 
made him like himself — for in Genesis i. 27, you read: " So 
God created man in his own image." So that while to the 
various orders of inferior things there was given a material 
beauty, rendering them attractive to the sense of man, — 
to man, to whom alone an intelligent soul w^as appropria- 
ted, the very beauty of the Divinity was given — the lovely 
comeliness of a moral uprightness, the fair symmetry of a 
moral system subordinated to right and truth, the heaven- 
scented fragrance of holiness which should render him at- 
tractive and lovely in the sight of God himself. But to the 
passage we have just quoted from the 7th chapter of this 
book, a most damnatory clause is added : God hath made 
man upright — " but they have sought out many inventions." 
The presumptuous creature undertook, under the instigation 
of Satan, to improve upon the divine model, and perfect him- 
self into a literal God, and spoiled himself in consequence. 
He undertook a process like that of gilding refined gold, 
painting the lily, and throwing a perfume on the violet : the 



KEY. WM. B. WEED. 325 

result was that " the gold became dim, the fine gold changed ;" 
the white-robed innocence of the lily, and the modest hu- 
mility of the violet gave place to the blackness of disobedient 
guilt, and the barrenness of a pride which dared to match 
itself against Heaven. And all his posterity have taken after 
him. The insane aspiration to be independent of their 
Maker, has introduced into their souls the canker-worm of 
sin, which has eaten out the moral beauty of their creation 
features — leaving them to be replaced by the family likeness 
of hell, not heaven. Hence, while all the other works of 
God, incapable of self-changes, retain their primitive beauty, 
man, the only one of them who had power to do it, has 
thrown his away — the highest of the orders of creatures, 
and the only one of them which presents a spectacle of uni- 
versal deformity. 

And does it not fill thee, dear godless hearer, in whom 
that sin-wreck and ruin hath never been repaired, that sin- 
created deformity never hath been mitigated — does it not fill 
thee with confusion of face, while you look abroad on nature 
at this glorious season, and survey her visible charms, to 
think of the moral antithesis which your own being presents 
to them ; to think of the contrast between the beauties which 
you behold in all her aspects, and the unsightliness which 
God beholds in thee ? Must it not dash your enjoyment of 
this smiling season, to think that every recurrence of it is 
either the last, or bringing you nearer to the last — nearer to 
the period when you must begin an existence that is measured, 
not by seasons, and months, and years ; yet all unfit for that 
paradise — that celestial garden, where every flower is fra- 
grant with the beauty of God, redolent of holiness, and 
nothing admitted there except what is? Alas, dear soul! 
monument of sinful deformity amidst a world of loveliness, 
you need to undergo a process analogous to that which the 
vivifying beams of heaven are now effecting in the world of 
nature — quickening the vegetable creation with new life, and 
clothing again its every specimen in the garden and the 
grove with that regenerated beauty of w^hich the autumnal 
frosts despoiled th^m. The Sun of Righteousness can do the 
same by thee. Blighted by sin, marred and despoiled, and 
destitute of all that is lovely in the sight of God and man, 
the quickening beams of his renewing grace can wake in 
thee anew the life of God — make thee a new man, created 
as Adam was originally, after God — after the Father of his 

2S 



326 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

nature, " in righteousness and true holiness." Then shall a 
beauty be upon you — not of that material, evanescent nature 
with which he clothes the flowers of the field, but the glori- 
ous, unfading, and immutable beauty with which he clothes 
himself. 



" And these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the 
righteous into life eternal^ — Matt. xxv. 46. 

One of the most decisive tests of the fallacy of an argu- 
ment is, that it proves too much — that is, that, if admitted, 
it not only establishes the point which it is offered to prove, 
but a great many other points which he who employs it, to- 
gether with everybody else, denies. A few years since, a lead- 
ing member of the English Parliament then — a leading mem- 
ber of the English cabinet now — published a treatise on the 
necessity of a union of church and state, which, as being the 
work of a layman, attracted an unusual degree of attention 
at the time, and of which the fundamental principle was this : 
The members of a civil government are intrusted with power 
for which they are responsible to God, and which they be- 
hoove to sanctify by religious acts — that is, it is their duty 
to profess a religion in their governmental capacity, and to 
support and maintain it among their subjects — especially by 
appointing to office none but the professed adherents of their 
own faith. To this it was replied, that exactly the same rea- 
soning is applicable to the directors of a railway company, or 
to the commanding officers of an army. They are intrusted 
with power for which they are responsible to God : there- 
fore they behoove to sanctify it by rehgious acts ; therefore 
it is their duty to profess a rehgion in their governmental 
capacity, and to maintain and enforce it within the limits of 
their authority — especially by appointing no superintendent 
or conductor in the one case, no subordinate military officer 
in the other, who is not a professed adherent of their own 
faith. But who admits this? Nobody; and therefore the 
argument for the union of church and state, because it proves, 
what nobody believes, is good for nothing. Burke com- 
menced his splendid literary career with a treatise in which 
the sophistries of Bolingbroke and Shaftesbury against re- 



REY. WM. B. WEED. 327 

vealed religion — Christianity — were in like manner exposed ; 
that is, by showing that the most specious objections alleo-ed 
against Christianity — the wars and persecutions of which it 
had been the occasion — the unholy passions, ambition, and 
the lust of power, it had been the means of exciting in human 
bosoms — and the expense required to maintain its institu- 
tions,^ — lay with equal force against the institution of civil 
government; that is, that the same arguments offered to 
prove that the world would be the better without Christian- 
ity, would prove no less — what nobody is prepared to admit 
— that the world would be a gainer by being resolved into a 
state of universal anarchy. 

We propose to apply the same line of argument to the 
doctrine of future punishment. It is denied, you are aware, 
by many. Now, in the text it is placed in immediate juxta- 
position with another doctrine — that of future happiness — 
which is denied by none — which is fondly cherished and be- 
lieved by all. We aim to show that the leading objections 
against the former, lie with equal force agajnst the latter ; 
that if, w^hich is not likely, one should undertake to prove 
the heaven of the Bible a nonentity, he might allege the 
self-same arguments which have been employed to discredit 
the general belief of the evangelical world as to the hell of 
the Bible. 

I. It is objected to the orthodox doctrine of future punish- 
ment that it receives no a priori sanction from human rea- 
son — that the independent suggestions of the mind of man 
would never have originated such a belief. Now, while we 
utterly deny that there is any thing in the revealed word of 
God which is contrary to reason — any thing which the hu- 
man understanding is authorized to pronounce incredible, 
inadmissible, or absurd — we as freely grant that there are 
many things contained in it which, from the nature of the 
case, the human understanding would never have conceived 
or discovered without light from heaven. Thus, w^e need 
no revelation to tell us of the existence of a Supreme Being, 
whose eternal power and Godhead are declared by his works. 
Nature is Bible enough to tell us that God exists ; but it tells 
us nothing as to the mode of his existence— w^hether an ab- 
solute personal unity, a duality, or trinity, is to be predicated 
of him. This is a fact known only to himself, and known to 
us only by direct communication. So as to the question 
whether there is forgiveness with Jehovah for the guilty, 



328 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

and if so, on what terms and conditions ; as this is a subject 
involving the highest exercise of divine sovereignty, we can 
form no definite conceptions respecting it, except from his 
own revealed communications. And we admit that the 
amount and degree of retributive punishment that is to be 
visited on the guilty, stands in the same category. We are 
not competent to form an opinion beforehand on the subject. 
What sin deserves, what satisfaction is due to the oftended 
majesty of Heaven, Avhat amount and degree of penal sanc- 
tion is needful to vindicate his law and estabhsh his throne 
in righteousness, are points which he only has a right to de- 
termine — which he only is capable of determining — and on 
which we are simply to take his word of revelation, just as we 
do on the doctrine of the Trinity, or on the doctrine of human 
salvation. 

But now let us inquire whether human reason were any 
more likely to make an a priori discovery of the heaven of 
revelation ? Is the doctrine of perfect and eternal happiness 
beyond the grave, one which the unaided suggestions of the 
human understanding would ever have been likely to origi- 
nate ? Leaving revelation out of the account, we know of 
but two sources from which we could obtain any light on 
this subject. The first is the analogy of experience and ob- 
servation. Now, what is the response of this oracle? Just 
this — that in the five thousand years and odd that the human 
race has existed, it has never presented one single specimen 
of complete and perfect happiness. Human life is divided, 
experimentally as well as literally, into day and night ; and, 
as a general rule, after a December fashion — there is more 
night than day. Where is the man who would assert that 
a state of complete freedom from sorrow, disquietude, and 
suffering, has been the type of the largest segment of his 
existence? Where is the man who would not assert just 
the contrary? In a word, while many, from causes that 
were born with them, have been literal sufferers from the 
day of their birth to the day of their death, a complete ex- 
emption from suffering in every form can be predicated of 
not a single one of all the countless progeny of Adam. He 
w^ho pi'omised the oriental monarch to restore his dead daugh- 
ter to life, if he would engrave on her tomb the names of three 
persons who had never grieved, ran no risk of having his 
proffer put to the test ; nor would he if, instead of the names 
of three strangers to grief, he had required but one. Now, 



KEV. WM. B. WEED. 329 

tell us, what right has human reason to pronounce that the fu- 
ture state shall be so utterly diverse from the present, to all or 
any of the human race ? That perfect exemption from sor- 
row, disquietude, and suffering, of which not a single example 
has ever been exhibited in this world since the world began 
— what reason have we to believe that a single example of 
it will ever be exhibited in the world to come? Surely, it 
were more according to analogy to suppose that the same 
checkered lot of good and evil which attends us here is to 
follow us hereafter, than that the hereafter is to present so 
glowing a contrast and opposition to the present ! But we 
said there is another source from which light might be sought 
on this subject, viz., our own consciousness ; that is, we are 
conscious of a prevailing desire to be happy — perfectly hap- 
py. It is one of the most familiar aspirations of our nature. 
And because it is never gratified in the present state of be- 
ing, it may be thought reasonable to expect it will be in a 
future one. But w^hy so ? You have lived fifty years, al- 
w^ays desiring to be perfectly happy, and always disappointed. 
Who can assure you that this is not the normal condition of 
your being — that you may live fifty million years with the 
same desire and the same disappointment? Above all, if we 
should feel authorized to suppose that the soul, on emerging 
into eternity, finds all the clouds of evil banished from its 
firmament, on what possible ground could we conclude that 
they wall not return again ? On what possible ground could 
w^e venture to afiirm that the sunshine which greets her be- 
yond the tomb will be not only complete but everlasting ? 
Were it not just as reasonable to suppose that, as that future 
state of felicity followed one period of evil, so it will ulti- 
mately be followed by another ? We submit, then, that the 
doctrine of future and eternal happiness is as much beyond 
the competency of the human mind to invent or discover, as 
the doctrine of future and eternal misery. Mr. Hume denies 
the reality of miracles, because they are contrary to our ex- 
perience — that is, because we have never seen one. With 
infinitely more cogency might we defy mere reason to de- 
monstrate to us the reality of a state of perfect blessedness, 
which is not only contrary to our experience, but to all earth- 
ly experience since the world was made — of which no mortal 
in all the generations of the human family has ever seen or 
known a single exemplification. Indeed, the insufficiency of 
mere reason to pronounce definitely on this subject, is clearly 

28* 



330 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

indicated by the oft-quoted saying of the great Solomon of 
ancient heathenism to his judges — " You are to remain in the 
world, and I to leave it ; but the gods only know which of 
us has the better lot." 

II. The charge of injustice is brought against the doctrine 
in question. It is unjust to inflict an eternal penalty for the 
sins of a brief lifetime. No man can contract guilt enough 
in fifty years to deserve everlasting punishment. [N'ow, ad- 
mit this argument, and you see in a moment it is a two-edged 
sword, that cuts both ways. For with still greater cogency 
may it be alleged that there is no justice in conferring eter- 
nal rewards for the righteous acts of a brief lifetime ; that 
no man can contract merit enough in fifty or seventy years 
to deserve everlasting happiness. I^othing, indeed, is more 
obvious than that the demerit of one's acts does not depend 
upon the time he is in performing them, but upon their own 
nature and enormity. One may, in a single moment, com- 
mit an act which shall give him a deeper dye of guilt than 
another contracts in half a century. And it is just as true 
that the merit of a man's actions does not depend upon the 
time he occupies in performing them, but upon their own 
nature, and worth, and excellence. One may, in a single 
moment, perform an act which shall give him a more honor- 
able reputation than another can acquire in half a century. 
But if the question of time makes any difierence, it is obvi- 
ously in favor of the latter, and against the former. Wash- 
ington and Arnold both acquired an earthly immortality — 
the one of glory, and the other of infamy. How ? The one 
by a whole life of patriotic services, and the other by a 
single act of treason. And so in general. An estate in fee 
simple of the world's reprobation and condemnation has 
much more frequently been acquired in a few hours or days, 
than a corresponding estate in its admiring plaudits. The 
latter is usually of slower accumulation. He who denies 
that a lifetime is long enough to treasure up wrath that shall 
be unquenchable and eternal, and at the same time asserts 
that it is long enough to earn an estate in heaven's glory no 
less eternal, runs counter to all known analogy. Judging 
from the light aiforded by analogy and observation, we 
should conclude the impossibility in the latter case was even 
greater than the former. Besides, observe that while the 
merits of an individual are measured by himself — by what 
he is — by his rank in the scale of being — the guilt and de- 



KEY. WM. B. WEED, 831 

merit of his sin is measured by the soundness of the law it 
violates, and by the character and position of the Eternal 
Sovereign whom it affronts and defies. The most insignifi- 
cant of OLir population, who might live to the age of Methu- 
selah without being able to do any thing which should lay 
the government under the slightest obligation to him, may 
yet, in a single hour, commit an act against the peace and 
welfare of the State which should compel the government 
to rise against him and inflict on him the highest penalty of 
the law. In this view of the case, is it not perfectly evident 
that if the doctrine of eternal punishment must be given up 
because no sinner has ever lived and sinned long enough to 
deserve it, the doctrine of eternal happiness must no less be 
given up for the same reason — because no man has ever lived 
and merited long enough to deserve that ? Say you that he 
who defies his God by years of transgression of his revealed 
wdll cannot be guilty enough to be sent to an endless hell ? 
Then with what face can you assert that any man — that any 
human man — can, by whatever course of obedience during 
the same period, lay his God under such obligations as to be 
entitled to be welcomed to an eternal heaven ? 

You will observe that in this argument w^e leave Christ 
and the atonement out of the account. They who believe 
in him shall be saved, not by their own merits, but by his. 
Of course they are in no danger of future punishment. We 
speak of those who are — who die impenitent and unbelieving 
— and we insist that if they have not done evil enough to 
deserve eternal misery, still less can they have done good 
enough to deserve eternal happiness — and thus the same 
argument that would exempt them from perdition will still 
more effectually shut them out of heaven. If they are to 
be saved, it must be by their own merits. 

III. The charge of partiality which is often arrayed 
against the doctrine of future punishment, is an engine that 
may be turned with still greater force against those who em- 
ploy it. Partiality is a disposition to favor one person above 
another without just cause or reason. Now, what is the re- 
vealed principle on which the retributions of eternity are to 
be distributed? Just this — that every man shall be re- 
warded according to his works. Or, more specifically — Obey 
God perfectly, keep his law perfectly ; or, faihng in that, be- 
lieve in Him who has kept it, with penitence for past trans- 
gression, and, in dependence on his grace, commence and 



332 



SERMONS BY THE LATE 



pursue, till death, a life of holiness— and you shall be re- 
quited with life eternal. Reject Him— live in sin without re- 
pentance, die without holiness, and you shall perish eternally. 
ISTow if there is any partiality here, it must consist in this : 
that there is no reason in making this distinction between 
the two— sending the one into life eternal, and the other into 
everlasting punishment. But we submit there is still less 
reason in confounding this distinction, and sending both into 
life eternal. If you can fix the charge of partiality on the 
parent w^ho turns an incorrigible son out of doors, you could 
do It much more readily if he showed him the same kindness 
as the son w^ho never offends him, or acknowledges and re- 
pents of it every time he does. If the law, or the magis- 
trate, may be charged with partiality in sending the criminal 
to jail, much more must they underlie that charge if they 
make no distinction between him and the faithful and obedi- 
ent citizen. If there is no sufficient reason why the sinner 
the unbeliever, should be punished, while the believer, the 
saint IS glorified, there is still less reason, and therefore more 
partiality, in glorifying the sinner like the saint. If it is par- 
tial to send the transgressor to perdition because of his sin 
and unbelief, it is still more so to send him to paradise not- 
withstanding his sin and unbelief. If it is partial to reward 
him with hell according to his evil works, it is still more so 
to reward him with heaven in spite of his evil works. 

IV. Behold another objection to the doctrine in question. 
One great object of penal threatenings is to prevent crime 
through the fear of its consequences. The jail and the gal- 
lows stand as potent restraints on every one who is tempted 
to rob or murder. But the threatening of everlastino- pun- 
ishment, it is said, were, from its very nature, altogether 
powerless for this end. For that can have no rationafeffect 
upon us, either one way or another, of which we are able to 
lorm no rational conception. But who can form an intelli- 
gent conception of punishment that is unending, everlastino-? 
It is an awful inconceivability— beyond the compass of the 
human understanding— which the mind as vainly tries to 
grasp as if one should try to inclasp the globe in his puny 
arms. And therefore it fails of the great end of threatened 
punishment— to deter from sin— because w^e cannot feel, we 
cannot be practically influenced, in the way of salutary re- 
straint or otherwise, by that which we cannot comprehend— 
of Avhich we can form no tangible notions. Admit all this, 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 333 

and then let us show you another and inevitable application 
of it. One great object of promised rewards — under any 
government, whether human or divine — is to promote obe- 
dience, is to stimulate the subject to do right, through the 
hope of such inviting consequences. But the promise of 
everlasting happiness were altogether powerless for this end. 
For who can form an intelligent conception of happiness that 
is unending, everlasting ? Eye hath not seen, and would be 
dazzled into blindness by the sight ; ear hath not heard, and 
would be stunned to deafness by the adequate description ; 
the heart, the mind of man hath not conceived, neither 
could hold the grand idea of the things which God hath pre- 
pared for them that love him. Is there any other passage of 
Holy Writ in which the inconceivableness of the things which 
God hath prepared for them that hate him is expressed more 
strongly? Now we indeed deny this objection in both its 
appHcations. We insist that the practical power of a tact, a 
truth, is not diminished but enhanced by the consideration 
that it can be known only in part, and is inconceivable as a 
whole : that even as the practical impression which the ma- 
terial universe affords us of the eternal power and Godhead 
of the Creator is heightened by the conviction that all we 
can see, whether by the eye or telescope, is but a small seg- 
ment of it, and that there is an immense expanse of space 
and accumulation of worlds besides that eludes our sight and 
transcends our comprehension ; even as the practical sense 
of our relations to God is heightened and deepened by the 
conviction of his awful and incomprehensible infinity— even 
so the practical power of heaven's glories, as a motive, to the 
holiness which alone can win them, is augmented by the consid- 
eration that an inspired apostle can find no more definite terms 
to express them than excessively, exceeding, and unspeak- 
able ; even so the practical power of hell's torments to warn 
us from the sin that is sure to incur them is not the less, but 
all the greater, because behind and beyond all we can con- 
ceive of them, there is a dark infinity that we cannot con- 
ceive ; because, while all can understand in part, no mortal 
this side the veil can grasp, in their full dimensions, the eter- 
nal horrors of the second death. What w^e insist on, is that 
they who assert the contrary on the latter point, are shut up 
to the same conclusion as regards the former— that it the 
retributions of eternity are not appropriate restraint Irom 
sin because they are inconceivable, then neither are the re- 



334 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

wards of eternity an appropriate incitement to virtue, because 
they are no less inconceivable. 

V. It is objected that the doctrine of eternal punishment 
is founded on a misinterpretation — that granting the Scrip- 
ture reveals a future retribution, it does not reveal a retribu- 
tion that shall never end ; and they who assert the contrary 
mistake its import. Grant this for the moment, and then we 
defy all such objectors to prove that eternal happiness is a 
doctrine of Scripture, or that they who hold it do not mis- 
take its import. Because it employs the same language in 
both cases, and not a whit more strong or decisive in the one 
than the other. Saith Abraham in paradise to the rich man 
in hell, " There is a great gulf between us, so that they which 
would pass from hence to you cannot ; neither can they pass 
to us that would come from thence." Is that gulf one day to 
be filled up, or bridged over, so that Dives may pass from 
torment to paradise? Prove, then, that over that same 
bridge Abraham will not be made to pass from paradise to 
torment. Of the lost, saith John, "The smoke of their tor- 
ment ascendeth up for ever and ever ; and they rest not day 
nor night." Of the glorified he saith, " They rest not day 
and night, saying, Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty." 
Is it consistent with the terms employed in the former case to 
suppose that restlessness of torture will ever cease ? It is just 
as consistent with the same language employed in the latter 
case to suppose that that restlessness of eternal rapture will 
also cease. " They that sleep in the dust of the earth shall 
awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and ever- 
lasting contempt." Is only a limited duration denoted in 
the latter case? Then neither is there in the former. "These 
shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous 
into life eternal." Our translators, for the sake of euphony, 
have varied the expression, " everlasting," " eternal," both 
denoting an endless duration, and both representing the same 
word in the original Greek. What then ? Is that everlast- 
ing punishment only a limited one ? Then so is that life 
eternal only a limited one, for it is perfectly evident that the 
Saviour, in employing the self-same term in either case, 
intends to indicate the same duration in both. It comes to 
this, then, that they who assert the Bible reveals no more 
than a limited punishment, can never prove from the Bible 
the doctrine of eternal happiness. The same and the amplest 
terms of duration that are applied to the latter are applied 






KEV. WM. B. WEKD. 335 

to the former. If they mean something less than endless in 
the one case, they must in the other. If he who dies in his 
sins is after a certain period of punishment to be transferred 
to heaven, it is impossible to prove that he who sleeps m 
Jesus will not, after a certain period of blessedness, be trans- 
ferred to hell. . ^ . ... 

It is evident, then, that if the doctrme of eternal perdition 
were as congenial to human sensibilities as the doctrine of 
dory, the one would have been as cordially and as universally 
believed as the other; and that the former is denied, simply 
because it is distasteful and repulsive. But taste and sensi- 
bility have nothing to do with deciding a question of fact. 
Will you deny that winter is coming because you dishke its 
anticipated reign ? Will you deny that you can be sick, or 
deny because you shrink from, the anticipated pains and 
agonies of disease and death ? Will you deny the threaten- 
ings of wn-ath eternal because you dread to meet it ? Beho d 
the double folly of this. It is not only unreasonable m itself, 
but it involves the denial of all that is meant by hfe eternal. 
The palace of Jehovah and his eternal prison— every blow 
that tends to annihilate the latter, tends also to undermine 
the former Every argument that would quench the llames 
of the pit would go just as far to quench the glories of heav- 
en Every argument by which you try to convince your- 
self that you have nothing to fear beyond the grave, proves 
iust as convincingly that you have nothing to hope there. 
In a word, aro-ue eternal perdition out of existence, and every 
ground on which you or I are authorized to beheve m eter- 
nal happiness is gone,— the future is to us nothing but the 
ffrand "perhaps," which the French infidel styled it,— our lite 
must be a wretched uncertainty as to what shall be hereatter, 
—our death a leap in the dark, whose landing-place the 
Omnipotent only knoweth. 

Dear hearer, there is a better w^ay to annihilate, at least to 
all practical intents and purposes, the terrors of the wrath 
to come, than thus to destroy every foundation^on which tne 
hope of life and immortality may be built. Believe them 
both. Open your eye to all that is repugnant m the one, 
and to all that is inviting in the other; and then flee trom 
the wrath to come, and awake by repentance to l^te and im- 
mortahty, and identify thy soul by faith with ^im-the Light 
and Life of the world, on whom whosoever beheveth shall 
never perish. Thus, thus only, shall the second death have 



336 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

no more power upon thee than if it were a harmless phan- 
tom of the brain ; and the flames of the pit be as effectually 
quenched for thee, as if the breath of efehovah had never 
kindled them. 



^ * » 



" j&e hath made with me an everlasting covenant^ ordered in all 
things^ and sure : for this is all my salvation^ and all my desired 
— 2 Sam. xxiii. 5. 

" God has permitted me to bear so many testimonies for 
him in the course of my life," says Whitefield, "that he will 
require nothing of the kind of me when I come to die. It 
is only those whose mouths are dumb while they live, whom 
he compels to speak out at death." This prediction respect- 
ing himself turned out to be literally true, for he died almost 
at a moment's warning. But we by no means subscribe to the 
correctness of the sentiments expressed or impHed in these 
words. On the one hand we believe that, as a general rule, 
those whose tongues are silent, in the sense referred to, till 
they come to die, might as well be silent then. We believe 
that God has very little to do with those religious fervors, in 
wliich the soul for the first time breaks out when the chill of 
dissolution comes stealing over the body. We believe he is 
little honored by, and little interested in the testimony, that 
is borne to himself and to his religion by tongues that are 
never modulated to such accents till just as time strikes its 
last hour, and eternity heaves in sight. On the other hand, 
we do beheve that God expects his faithful servants to give 
him their dying as well as their living testimony. The ripe 
fruits of their experience, like those which grow on the top- 
most boughs of the tree, are the most precious of their whole 
yield. To those pursuing a given route, the views of it en- 
tertained by those who have completed it cannot but be 
useful. To those embarked in a given enterprise, the esti- 
mate of it entertained by those who have accomplished it 
cannot but be valuable. To those engaged in the service of 
a given employer, the opinion of him entertained by those 
who have worn their life out in his service cannot but be in- 
teresting. Hence the value of the last utterances — such as 
we have on record from the dying lips of Toplady and Pay- 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 337 

son — of men who nre just completing the route to Mount 
Zion— just accomplishing the enterprise of salvation — just 
receiving their discharge from the probationary service of 
God. To those amidst the S'weat, and toil, and conflict of 
the Christian campaign, they are' more precious than gold — 
more fragrant than a bundle of myrrh. Thus that holy 
singer, prophet, king, to whom we are indebted for the text 
to-day — no man within the compass of Bible history bore so 
many personal, living testimonies to God ; yet the Holy Ghost 
has not for that been less careful to perpetuate his dying tes- 
timony — and liere you have it rising from his chamber of 
death, like a cloud of incense in honor of God, and refresh- 
ing the soul of every struggling saint who reads it, with its 
sweet-smelling savor : " He hath made with me an evei'last- 
ing covenant, ordered in all things, and sure : for this is all 
my salvation, and all my desire." 

I. We would endeavor to apply a magnifying-glass to 
these vv'Ords respectively, and exhibit in somewhat more ex- 
panded dimensions their scope and bearing. 

1. As to the covenant in question. Some identify it with 
the covenant made with David respecting the perpetuation of 
the sceptre of Judah in his flimily, of which we have a record 
in the 132d Psalm, 11th and 12th verses: "The Lord hath 
sworn in tmth unto David, he will not turn from it. Of the 
fruit of thy body will I set upon thy throne. If thy children 
will keep my covenant and my testimony that I shall teach 
them, their children shall also sit upon thy throne for ever- 
more." But how could he style such a covenant " all his 
salvation and all his desire " in such an hour as this ? Was 
it enough to bound the desires of a dying saint to know that 
the earthly splendors of Iiis house would last when he was 
gone ? Could he, in any legitimate sense of the word, pro- 
nounce it all his salvation to feel assured that his children 
would reign after him ? Is it not manifest that, in adopting 
this explanation, we are belittling his meaning — putting the 
ambition and family pride of the father in place of the holy 
confidence of the man of God in a covenant consisting of 
" better promises" — though indeed connected with the fore- 
going, in that the glorious person, in whom and by whom 
its fulfilment was to be secured, was no other than the last 
and ever-reigning representative of his royal line — Jesus^ of 
the house and lineage of David. Says God, in Jeremiah 
xxxii. 39, 40, ''I will give them one heart and one way, that 

29 



338 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

they may fear me forever, for the good of them and of their 
children after them ; and I will make an everlasting covenant 
with them, that I will not turn away from them to do them 
good." Again, in Ezekiel xxxvii. 25, 26 : " Moreover, I will 
make a covenant of peace with them ; it shall be an everlasting 
covenant with them : and I will place them, and will multiply 
them, and will set my sanctuary in the midst of them for 
evermoi-e. And my servant David shall be their prince for- 
ever." The literal David was already dead, four centuries 
and a quarter before. It was He w^ho immortalized the stock 
of David by engrafting Godhead upon it, that is meant here ; 
— whose reign should be the era, as his priestly office-work 
had been the purchase, of that eternal covenant of peace. 
But, in the 55th chapter of Isaiah, the literal David stands 
associated Avith this covenant. " Incline your ear, and come 
unto me ; hear, and your soul shall live ; and I will make an 
everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of Da- 
vid." Now turn to the 89th Psalm, and you will perceive 
at once the propriety of this last expression. You will find 
the promises of that everlasting covenant of grace addressed 
formally to him. "I have found David my servant, with 
whom my hand shall be established; mine arm also shall 
strengthen him. My faithfulness and my mercy shall be 
with him, and in my name shall his horn be exalted. He 
shall cry unto me, Tliou art my father, my God, and the 
Rock of my salvation. My mercy will I keep for him for 
evermore, and my covenant shall stand fast with him." So, 
then, that perpetual covenant of peace and mercy, of which 
Christ is at once the security and the executor — which is 
made by God with those who incline their ear and fear him, 
-^that is, with his obedient servants, and which had been 
personally communicated to the son of Jesse, in terms as ex- 
plicit as the nature of the then existing dispensation admitted 
of, — this is what he here announces as constituting the entire 
basis of his salvation and the sum of his desires. 

2. He calls it '' an everlasting^ covenant." This term we 
take in its largest sense, as denoting a duration that parallels 
the whole lifetime of Jehovah. For that covenant is as old 
as God in its origin, and as lasting as his existence in its 
frwits ; from everlasting in the divine purpose, to everlasting in 
its blessed effects ; eternal in contrivance and counsel ; eter- 
nal in continuance and consequences. Born from the heart 
of God uncountable millenniums before Adam, — yet as inti- 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 339 

mately associated with that fallen child of his, as much a 
part of God's arrangements respecting him, as his own limbs, 
as his own life, — that covenant attaches itself to him, singles 
him out wherever it finds him, singles him out from a whole 
world full of such, and — if you will permit us to take advan- 
tage of the double meaning of the word — makes a vessel of 
mercy of him, gives him its grace for steerage, and its prom- 
ises for ballast, and its Christ for captain, launches him on 
the sea of salvation, and propels him right onward, against 
wind and tide, right to New Jerusalem port — right into the sea 
of glass, before the throne of God— and anchors him there for 
hfe eternal. Behold the meaning of " everlasting covenant." 

3. But he further designates it as " ordered in all things 
and sure." These two ideas have the connection of cause 
and consequence. It is sure, steadfast, not liable to failure, 
loss, or change, because it is ordered in all things. But what 
is the meaning of this latter expression ? We answer, " or- 
dered" means methodized, regulated, arranged, and directed 
according to fixed rules. It is just the opposite of leaving 
things to chance and contingency. Therefore, to say that 
this covenant is " well ordered in all things," is to say that 
nothing relating to it is left to contingency ; that every thing 
pertaining to it is so digested, fixed, and regulated, as to 
bring out the sought result in every case with unerring cer- 
tainty. Take an illustration or two. A well-ordered house 
is one in which every thing pertaining to the family arrange- 
ments is so carefully systematized, that from day to day these 
arrangements are perfected, each in its order, each in its 
proper time, without confusion and without clashing with 
each other. A well-ordered plan or enterprise is one in 
which every feature has been carefully marked out, every 
component part arranged, every subordinate movement as- 
signed to its proper place, and every difticulty provided for, 
so as to insure success, at least so far as human wisdom and 
foresight can. 

These illustrations are of course inadequate. No human 
contrivance, arrangement, system, is independent of contin- 
gency, because no human wisdom is unceasing, and no hu- 
man foresight infallible. The most thoroughly studied, the 
best digestqd plan may involve unsuspected defects, which 
w^ill render it inoperative ; and aside from this, new contin- 
gencies may arise which would make success impossible on 
any plan. Now just the antithesis to this, God's everlast- 



340 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

ing covenant is, in the absolute sense, well ordered and sure; 
complete as to its arrangements, certain as to its results. 
Infinite wisdom guarantees the truth of the first of these 
propositions; Infinite power the latter. The object of that 
covenant is the salvation of individual man. The leading, 
responsible parties to it are God and his son ; the former 
acting in his own name ; the latter in the name and as the 
surety of those whose salvation is to be secured. Of course 
that covenant can never be repudiated, altered, changed, 
modified in any respect ; since that would imply a change in 
the original parties themselves, of one of whom it has been 
said that ''He is the same yesterday, and to-day, and for- 
ever ;" and the other has said of himself, " I change not." 
The un tailing and exhaustless consideration on which that 
covenant is founded, the all-adequate means of carrying it 
into efiect, is the atonement and sufferings of God the Son. 
Nor is this all. There is an agent of unlimited power, God 
the Spirit, engaged to insure the success of these means by 
his own immediate efiiciency in every case ; renewing, sancti- 
fying, and fitting for salvation those for whose benefit that 
covenant was made. Nothing about it, then, is left to con- 
tingency. Its original parties, the first and second assessors, 
of the throne of the eternal Trinity ; the funds to make it 
operative provided by the meritorious sufferings of the 
second, and the omnipotent prowess of the third exerted in 
every case to make an effectual application of them, so as 
certainly to secure the great result— rthe salvation of the 
soul. Well may such an arrangement be styled " well or- 
dered" in all its parts — stable in its basis, unchangeable in 
its constitution, and certain to accomplish its ends. 

4. And this covenant of God's " sure mercies," says the 
royal confessor, " is all my salvation." It may occur to you 
that there are other passages in his writings which are in- 
consistent with such an acknowledgment. " I was also up- 
right before him, and I kept myself from mine iniquity. 
Therefore hath the Lord recompensed me according to my 
righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands in his 
eyesight." Such expressions occur more than once in the 
Psalms of David ; and they have been supposed to indicate 
a spirit of self-righteous justification, totally inconsistent with 
the feeling of simple dependence on. the covenanted grace 
and mercy of God which breathes in the text. We think 
the true explanation of this is to be found in the views pre- 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 341 

rented here last Sabbath. God sustained a twofold relation 
to the Jewish people — their moral Sovereign as he is of all 
mankind ; their temporal Ruler in the strict and literal sense, 
in which he never was of aiiy other nation. In the latter 
capacity he gave them a code of laws which, like those of 
Connecticut or New York, promised temporal benefits to 
the obedient, and threatened the transgressor with temporal 
inflictions. Now in this sense, in relation to the temporal 
government which Jehovah exercised over the Hebrews, we 
suppose there was not one of them at this period who was 
a more faithful subject of God than David ; more faithful in 
fulfilling the requisition of the law, and better entitled to the 
temporal rewards it promised. In this sense he might make 
his honest boast before his enemies and detractors, that God 
had rewarded him, as a faithful subject of his temporal gov- 
ernment, according to his obedience; had loaded him with 
temporal favors, and crowned him with temporal honors; 
just as it might be a matter of honest pride with a deserving 
citizen among us, that his country — the real sovereign here 
— had in the same fashion rewarded him. And this we 
believe is all the Psalmist can fairly be supposed to mean by 
such expressions as we now refer to. For observe, you 
never hear him predicating on any such ground the expecta- 
tion of future rewards, or the hope of final salvation. Far 
enough from it. We show^ed last ^Sabbath, that though most 
of the ancient Jews had little or no conception of God's 
moral relations to them, yet, beyond question there were 
some of them, at least, by whom these moral relations were 
understood. David was of that number. Hear him in the 
143d Psalm: "Enter not into judgment with thy servant, 
for in thy sight shall no man living be justified." Here God, 
as the temporal ruler, is forgotten ; and his own legal obedi- 
ence to his temporal authority is forgotten too. God, in the 
awfulness of his heart-exacting moral sovereignty stands be- 
fore him, and at once he feels and confesses that, to put him- 
self right with such a sovereign, a thousand acts of legal 
obedience, reinforced by burnt ofierings without number, 
can be of no avail. The only sacrifice that he dares to offer 
is that of a broken spirit ; the only sacrifice that he dares 
depend on is that of the Lamb of God ; the only salvation 
which he dares to look for is that provided by the sure and 
well-ordered covenant, of which mercy is the basis, and grace 
the superstructure. 

29* 



342 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

5. And this covenant is " all my desire." To understand 
the scope of this declaration, observe the boundless meaning 
of this word '' desire," when thus used without qualification. 
Our reasonable expectations have their necessary limits. 
Our desires have none. We may desire what it would be 
madness to expect ; we may desire what is unattainable ; we 
may desire what we know is impossible. I may desire to be 
rich as Croesus. I may desire an immortality on earth for 
myself or others. I may desire that the friend, who lies 
dead before me, would wake and speak to me. And I may 
desire to be a king, an emperor. I may desire to have the 
whole world at my feet. I may desire to be a god. Adam 
did. So then to human desire, in the absolute sense, there 
is no assignable limit. Now look you that David had this 
same illimitable capacity of desire in common with other 
men ; and yet God's everlasting covenant of grace, " well 
ordered in all things and sure," was enough to fill that 
capacity brimming full ; furnishing storage for every part of 
its illimitable dimensions. Thus, that covenant was all he 
desired as a means of salvation. Had he said it was all he 
expected, the case would have been different. For then we 
might have understood him thus : God will have his own 
way. The salvation which his covenant provides is not 
altogether so safe and reliable as a ground of dependence, 
nor are the terms on which I am to appropriate it so flatter- 
ing to my self-will, my pride of heart, as I could wish. I 
would amend it considerably if I had the power ; but since 
this is out of the question, since it is the best I can hope for, 
I must perforce take up with it. But to say " this covenant 
is all my desire," is to say that he would not mend it if he 
could. I would not have it safer as an anchorage for my 
eternal hopes, for it is as safe now as the most extravagant 
wishes could demand. T would not have it a whit less hu- 
miliating in its terms and conditions, for, putting me on the 
pension-list of God's sure, eternal mercy, it places me just 
where I wish to be, where my most extravagant desires have 
nothing to ask further. Observe, that as sin had long before 
destroyed in him the expectation to merit salvation, grace had 
by this time destroyed even the wish to do so. Oh ! that I 
could break away from this degrading position, which makes 
me a moral nullity, and treat with God on equal terms foi 
life eternal ! Such is the feeling of the sinner. Such occa* 
sionally may have been the feeling of David, as long as he 



EEV. WM. B. WEED. 343 

had any remains of selfish pride in him ; but it is all gone 
now, and the beggar's portion — mercy, is the limit not only 
of his expectations but of his wishes ; not only all he hopes 
for but all he desires. Or, take another view of this expres- 
sion. That covenant included in itself every thing that he 
could desire, whether with immediate reference to his salva- 
tion or not. Like that tree of which Mohammed told his 
followers, that when admitted into j^aradise they should find 
growing in the midst thereof, its roots in his palace and its 
branches every where, and of such a wondrous nature that 
whatever they might wish for, that tree would immediately 
and spontaneously yield, the moment the wish was conceived 
— even such was God's everlasting covenant to David, a living 
and perpetual magazine, where all that he could wish for 
found its corresponding object ; any desire that it was pos- 
sible for him to conceive found its assured fulfilment. Doubt- 
less the time had been when he could not with truth have 
said this ; when his wayward cravings occasionally came in 
clashing and mortifying conflict v/ith the divine purposes 
respecting him. But the progress of sanctification has cor- 
rected this discrepancy. The swelling billows of his desires 
have learned to know their bounds, and contentedly to re- 
strict their scope within the limits of the covenant. " I want 
no more than what that covenant assures me, which makes 
Jehovah my father, my God, and the rock of my salvation." 
II. ISTow, the better to understand the value of his esti- 
mate of this covenant, and his confidence in it, which is here 
given as the result of a life-long experience, take this along 
with you : that perhaps few men ever lived in whom that 
estimate, that confidence, was ever subjected to severer trials. 
Raised to the highest post of human elevation, the power and 
splendors of royalty, the fame of military conquest, had com- 
bined to beguile him into a belief of the sufficiency of earthly 
supports, and make him say in his prosperity, " I shall never 
be moved" — what need I more than the world has given 
me ? But amidst all his prosperity, dwelling in a house of 
cedars, ruling an affectionate people, commanding a victori- 
ous army, giving law to conquered nations, there was an- 
other thing which he prized above all this, and which, steadily 
growing in his estimate, ultimately displaced every thing else, 
and became his all in all — and that was, the everlasting cov- 
enant of grace which God had made with him. He finishes 
life with the explicit declaration that there is nothing else that 



3M SERMONS BY THE LATE 

he cares for. But his confidence in it had been not less se- 
verely tested. Unfortunate in his kingdom ; doomed to ex- 
perience a general revolt, whose results clouded all the sub- 
sequent period of his reign ; unfortunate in his family, his 
sons slaughtering each other, two of them suffering a violent 
death, and that under circumstances which occasioned the 
most gloomy, w^e may say hopeless anticipations as to their 
future state— these trials, which had made his enemies daily 
exclaim, in sneering exultation, which was like a sword in 
his bones, " Where is now thy God ?" — had not been able to 
shake his trust in the everlasting covenant. Still does he 
say, " The rock of my strength and my refuge is in God ;" 
and dies at length in the peaceful and undo ub ting confidence 
that the sure and covenanted mercies he had promised him 
were still as stable and as sure as ever. 

We have thus endeavored to apply to the text a magni- 
fying power, to expand its truths before your mind. We 
would now adopt the contrary process, and endeavor to con- 
centrate them on your heart, dear brother. Have you — once 
a rebel, because a sinner — come to terms with God? Have 
you submitted your soul to him on the gospel platform of 
evangelical repentance, obedience, and faith in Jesus ? Why, 
then, know ye that it is not a mere temporary understanding 
into which God has entered with you, liable to be set aside 
by circumstances. It is a covenant — an everlasting covenant 
— old as eternity, and as enduring. Now, let the recorded 
experience of this great saint impel you to prize it, and to 
confide in it, as it deserves at your hands. Behold therein 
your whole salvation perfectly secured — Christ its surety, his 
blood its basis, his Spirit its efficient agent ; what more en- 
couragement do you need to use the means of salvation than 
this sure guaranty of their successful result ? Let nothing 
beguile you from your estimate of that covenant. Remem- 
ber that w^hatever this world can give you is procured on 
infinitely too costly terms if it require you, in any degree, to 
compromise your interest in that. And let nothing shake 
your confidence in it. Though troubles thicken on you fast 
and grievous, as they did on the latter years of David, still 
fall back upon the covenant, and hold on there : here is my 
last anchor — if I let that go, I am hopelessly afioat ; if I can- 
not trust that, I can trust nothing. Finally, let all your de- 
sires be bounded by that covenant ; so that whatever Provi- 
dence may take from you, or withhold, you shall just reckon 



EEV^ WM. B. WEED. 345 

the privation as part of the provisions of the covenant, and 
let it go. Having thus lived by the covenant, you will be 
prepared to die by it ; and peace, and confidence, and glori- 
ous hope will, like ministering spirits, attend your final hour ; 
while in language embodying the experience of the life that 
is past, and prophetic of a secure and blessed destiny in the 
life to come, you exclaim, "He hath made an everlasting 
covenant with me^ ordered in all things, and sure ; for this is 
all my salvation, and all my desire." 



-♦-•-^ 



''^ And the government shall he upon his shoulder J^ — Isa. ix. 6. 

Some critics will have it that what is said of the offspring 
of the woman who was clothed with the sun, in the 12th 
chapter of Revelation, can have no reference to Christ, 
though the same words are applied to him which the Psalm- 
ist had spoken with reference to the Lord's anointed, that 
he was to rule all nations with a rod of iron — because noth- 
ing is there said of that humiliation and those sufferings 
which are inseparable from our idea of the Lord Jesus. This 
child, on the other hand, is represented, immediately after 
his birth, as having been caught up to the throne of God. 
Now, it is obvious that the same objection might be applied 
to the passage before us. We endeavored to show, last Sab- 
bath, that Christ is the undoubted subject of it. But where 
are his sufferings, the contradiction of sinners, the cross, the 
tomb, those inseparable adjuncts of our conception of Jesus? 
There is nothing of the kind here. The coronation of this 
cliild immediately follows his birth. " Unto us a child is 
born, and the government shall be upon his shoulder." But 
sorrow, but suffering, but expiring agonies, intervened be- 
tween the birth and the coronation of Christ. The truth, 
however, is, that as in that wondrous personage characters 
as diverse and apparently as opposite were united as may be 
seen in the wild dramas of Metastasio, — in which the same 
individual appears at different times as a king and a begging 
monk, a monarchist and a republican, a philosopher and an 
ignoramus, — so, in the several visions which those prophets 
had of him, he usually appears but in one of these characters 



346 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

at a time. You rarely see him as a prophet, and a priest, 
and a king, in the same prophetic pictm-e. Where he is 
represented as a prophet, proclaiming " the acceptable year 
of tlie Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God," nothing 
is said of his kingly or priestly office. Where he is repre- 
sented as " wounded for our transgressions and bruised for 
our iniquities," there is no mention of his kingly or prophetic 
character. Now, it is in perfect keeping with this usage, 
that in the text, of which the obvious intent is to exhibit 
Messiah in his exaltation, his sacerdotal and prophetic char- 
acter is kept out of view ; and he is represented, not as a 
teaching prophet, or a bleeding priest, but a crowned and 
thrdffed king. 

I. The allusion of the text is sufficiently obvious in its ul- 
timate imjDort, though it may be variously explained. 

1. The prophet may simply mean to intimate that the 
child of whom he speaks shall sustain the government, as the 
shoulder is that by which we uphold or support any thing. 
For the idea of government as a figurative burden, borne by 
the magistrate, is as common in ancient as in modern phrase- 
ology. Thus the Roman Pliny, complimenting a youthful em- 
peror of his day, tells fiim, "Thy father hath already abundant- 
ly proved how safely empire might rest upon thy shoulders." 
And Cicero, with a similar allusion, addressing the judges 
before whom he was pleading in an important lawsuit, ap- 
peals to the common safety, the fortunes of the state, the 
welfare of the republic, which, says he, " you sustain on your 
shoulders on this trial." So, with reference to the miglity 
responsibilities which were to attach to him, Messiah may 
be represented in the text as sustaining upon his shoulders 
the common safety of God's moral dominion, the fortunes of 
men and angels, and the welfare of the universe. 

2. Dr. Lowth supposes the prophet to allude to the ensign 
of government, the sceptre, the sword, the keys, or the like, 
that were upon the shoulder, or suspended fi'om it. You find 
something of the kind in the 22d chapter and 22d verse of 
this prophet, where, saith God, " I will call my servant Elia- 
kim the son of Hilkiah, and I will clothe him with. thy robe, 
and strengthen him with thy girdle, and I Avill commit thy 
government into his hand ; and the key of the house of David 
will I lay upon his shoulder; so he shall open and none shall 
shut, and shut and none shall open." As ever with us, the 
delivering of the keys of a house is the same as giving pos- 



EEV. WM. B. WEED. 347 

session, because they empower the person who holds them 
to admit into it or exdude from it whomsoever he pleases; 
so here the son of Hilkiah is represented as bearing the key 
of the house or palace of David, either the thing itself or the 
embroidered figure of it, as bearing it upon his shoulder, in 
token of his investiture with the government. IN'ow, the 
Lord Jesus, in the 3d chapter of Revelation, uses this very 
language in relation to himself. '' These things saith he that 
is holy, he that is true, he that openeth and no man shutteth, 
and shutteth and no man openeth." It is quite probable, 
therefore, that the prophet, in the text, has the same allusion, 
which is more clearly indicated in what he says of Eliakim. 
We may suppose that — even as the great English dramatist 
represents a royal usurper contemplating in vision the future 
posterity of his rival, and discovering, from the fact that each 
of them wears a crown, that they are one day to supplant 
him on the throne — even so when, in this vision of the pro- 
phet, Messiah rose before the mind of the prophet, he ap- 
peared invested with those kingly robes, and bearing upon 
his shoulder that key of David, which imaged to the rapt 
seer the royal distinction to which he was destined. He saw 
his glory ; he saw him, in vision, robed and decorated like a 
king, arid therefore announces him as one. "The govern- 
ment shall be upon his shoulder." I need scarce add that, 
be the minute interpretation of the text what it may, its ob- 
vious intent is to ascribe to the future Messiah the honors of 
a royal dominion. 

II. There are two facts respecting this royal dominion of 
Messiah, which we will present in a single view : one is, that 
it is a prerogative, which the Scriptures abundantly ascribe 
to him ; and the other is, that they uniformly represent it as 
a gift, a bestowment, an investiture of God. In Psalm ii. 6 : 
"I have set my king" — the king of my creation or inaugura- 
tion — " upon my holy hill of Zion." In Psalm ex. 1, 2 : " The 
Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand till I 
make thine enemies thy footstool. The Lord shall send the 
rod of thy strength out of Zion ; rule thou in the midst of 
thine enemies." In Zechariah vi. 12: "Thus speaketh the 
Lord of hosts, saying, Behold the man whose name is the 
Branch ; even he shall build the temple of the Lord, and he 
shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule upon his throne"— 
that is, upon the throne of Jehovah, his throne, but commit- 
ted by delegation to the Branch, the Messiah. So in Matthew 



348 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

xi. 27: "All thinsrs are delivered unto me of mv Father." 
And Matthew xxviii. 18: "All power is given unto me in 
heaven and eai'tli" — of course by God, for who else had a 
right to give it? And in Luke i. 32 : "The Lord God shall 
give him the throne of his father David." And, finally, in 
1 Corinthians xv. 27, — and you find the same sentiment in 
Ei^hesians i., — " For he hath put all things under his feet. 
But when he saith all things are put under him, it is mani- 
fest that he is excepted which did put all things under him." 
The Scriptures, then, clearly announce the kingship of the 
Lord Jesus, and as clearly indicate its borrowed nature. It 
is a ^prerogative not founded in his birthright, but conferred 
by voluntary bestowment. As a sovereign he sits on a dele- 
gated throne, and borrows leave — from God — to be. 

III. But how is this borrowed sovereignty consistent with 
Godhead ? Is not supreme, absolute, independent, and inde- 
feasible sovereignty an essential prerogative of Deity ? If 
Christ was an original partaker of Deity, then he was a sov- 
ereign from eternity. Is there not, then, an absurdity in 
supposing him to have been constituted one in time ? Is 
there any such thing as God enthroning and crowning God ? 
If this was done by the Lord Jesus, if he was divinely con- 
stituted a sovereign in time, must he not have been — must 
he not be — a finite being ? Is not the idea of his absolute 
Deity out of the question ? In reply to this, observe that 
the government is to be upon the shoulders of him who, in 
the same verse, is called a child born and the mighty God — 
that is, the incarnate Word : Godhead combined in an in- 
separable and perpetual union with humanity. Now, as such, 
the Son of God had a beginning ; as such, he did not exist 
till he was born of the Virgin. Then only he began to be 
" God manifest in the flesh" — two distinct natures and one 
person forever. Had government, such as the Scriptures 
elsewhere explain it, been conferred upon him simply as the 
child of a human parent, we shall see hereafter that it would 
have been preposterous ; for his shoulders could not bear it. 
Had it been conferred upon him simply as the mighty God, 
it would have been superfluous ; for he had it befoi'e. As an 
equal participant in the honors of Godhead with the other 
persons of the Trinity, he bore on his shoulder the keys of 
the universe — the badge of universal empire. But to repre- 
sent this government as conferred upon him, as at once the 
child of a human parent and the mighty God, is neither pre- 



IlEV. WM. B, WEED. 349 

posteroiis nor superfluous: not the former, for his divinity 
made him abundantly adequate to bear it ; not the latter, for 
the humanity that was inseparably united with his divinity 
constituted him, so to speak, a new being — to whom, as par- 
taking of that humanity, the right to universal empire did 
not belong; and therefore, if in that new capacity he was to 
possess it, aftei* having taken the human nature into indisso- 
luble partnership, he behooved to be inaugurated anew — 
even as when a sanctuary, though the original structure re- 
mains the same, yet having received important additions and 
modifications so as to become essentially a new building, be- 
hooves to be consecrated to the worship of God anew. This 
complex nature enabled him to sustain relations 4)oth to God 
and man, which simple manhood or simple Godhead could 
never have sustained. It qualified him to be made in the 
likeness of sinful flesh, and to become the brother and bene- 
factor of our wretched race. It qualified him to assume the 
voluntary form of an obedient servant of his Father, and to 
be exahed by him in requital thereof. It qualified him to 
become a suffering victim, and made it meet that he should 
be enthroned at God's right hand as the reward of his suf- 
ferings. It was impossible for a God to suffer ; it was un- 
worthy for a man to be made the Lord of all ; but a God-man 
mio'ht both be humbled as a sufferer and exalted as a univer- 
sal kin Of. 

IV. And why was the government to be laid on the 
shoulders of the Messiah ? We reply — 

1. To fulfil God's oath to David. The covenant with 
Abraham did not require it. To him it was promised that 
in his seed all nations should be blessed. But that promise 
mischt have been fulfilled if Christ had been nothing^ but an 
atoning and interceding priest. By his atonement and mter- 
cessiou he might have procured for all nations the blessings 
of redemption though still the reins of universal sovereignty 
had remained undelegated in the hands of God. But the 
covenant with David required more than this. In that lies 
the germ of Messiah's kingship. In Ps. Ixxxix. 3, 4, saith 
God — "I have made a covenant with my chosen, I have 
sworn unto David my servant : Thy seed will I establish for- 
ever, and build up thy throne to all generations." iSTow 
there are some who cannot see what the exaltation of Christ 
to an invisible throne in heaven has to do with this promise, 
while the throne of David was overturned, and the kingdom 

30 



350 SEKMOKS BY THE LATE 

of David possessed by strangers. But a little reflection will 
enable us to see in the present and prospective reign of 
Christ a most perfect fulfilment of this oath to David. 
For— 

(1.) Conceive that David had been gifted with a temporal 
immortality, that his existence had been coeval w^ith the 
duration of the world, and that God had undertaken to ful- 
fil the promise we have just quoted personally to him, and 
make his individual throne as lasting as the sun. Well then, 
with several calamitous interruptions, always followed by an 
ultimate restoration, he would have reigned till the coming 
of Messiah. And now, no sooner had that glorious descend- 
ant of his made his appearance, whose birth, whose charac- 
ter, whose sufferings he had so minutely celebrated in his 
own immortal numbers, than he would have been the first 
to recognize and acknowledge him as the Messiah. " I owned 
thee for my Lord ages since. As such I own thee now." 
And the immediate consequence would have been, that the 
Jews would have disoAvned him. The self-same spirit that 
made them reject the Messiah, would have made them reject 
the sovereign who acknowledged him. For that sovereign, 
now a Christian, would have felt bound at once to pronounce 
the national law of ordinances abolished, and the simple wor- 
ship of Christianity substituted in its stead. And would the 
Jews have borne to see their time-honored religion supplant- 
ed by that of one whom they regarded as an impostor? 
No, take the history of that stiff-necked race for our guide, 
and we cannot doubt that an immediate rebellion would 
have been the consequence of such an attemj^t. And sup- 
pose it had, and suppose it had succeeded, and David had 
been dethroned. What then ? Must the promise that his 
throne should endure forever, fail? No — God might have 
told him, in perfect consistence with what w^e find intimated 
in the New Testament, "My people are no longer confined to 
one nation. They are those of every nation, whether Jews 
or Gentiles, who embrace the covenant of Abraham, who 
embrace the gospel, that w^as aforetime preached to him, and 
the Jesus whose day he saw and rejoiced in. These are 
God's Israel, and these are thy proper subjects as the sov- 
ereign of God's Israel." Well, then, suppose that it had been 
so ordered that in all time henceforth, men, fast as they be- 
came converted to the religion of Jesus, and members of the 
true Israel of God, should flock to the standard of David and 



KEY. WM. B. WEED. 351 

own him for their Lord. Year by year his subjects would 
have been increasing, till, as the ultimate event, all nations 
and people and languages did homage to his throne, and the 
promise of God would have been strictly fulfilled, that David 
should reign forever over the heritage, the Israel of God, 
according to the Bible import of that term. 

(2.) But if this be so, then this promise was as strictly ful- 
filled in the person of the Son of David; for all that we have 
supposed respecting his father, was, and is, and is to be true of 
him. The Jews who disowned him as their Messiah, rejected 
him as their king ; and in so doing they put themselves out of 
covenant with God. They were his Israel no longer. And 
who were, and 'are ? We repeat, those only, according to 
the apostle, who have the circumcision of a heart succeptible 
of the love of Jesus ; who do what the Jews ought to have 
done, and what they would have done if they had acted like 
his people, and in obedience to the divine oracles he had 
given them — who believe on him of whom Moses and the 
prophets did write. These are God's Israel. Over these 
Messiah reigns ; for all of them, without exception, under 
what temporal government soever they may live, acknowl- 
edge their chief temporal as well as eternal allegiance to be 
due to him. And because that holy seed shall endure for- 
ever, and ultimately become coextensive with the human 
race, therefore the reign of Messiah shall endure forever, 
and ultimately become coextensive with the human race. 
Is not God's oath to David performed then? Hath not his 
mighty offspring a perpetual throne — the very throne of 
David, over the very subjects, the very Israel — if we will 
allow the Bible to explain itself— that David himself would 
have ruled if he had lived till the day of judgment, and 
that oath been performed to himself in person ? We must 
remind you, by the way, that the kingdom of Messiah, un- 
confined to God's Israel, extends, though in a different yet 
proper sense, over all things — which is more than was ever 
promised to David. 

2. In addition to the reason we have just indicated, there 
was a personal ground on which the government was confer- 
red on Christ— ^o wit, his sufferings. " Crowned with glory 
and honor for the suffering of death." " He became obedi- 
ent unto death ; wherefore God hath highly exalted him." 
" I will divide him a portion with the great, because he hath 
poured out his soul unto death." Generosity, one of the 



352 SERMONS BY THK LATP] 

rarest and noblest attributes of man, is a cherished attribute 
of God. He is so generous that he sujQfers not the shghtest 
service done to him to go unrewarded. He is so generous, 
that in requiting the performances of his servants he Umits 
himself by nothing but their capacity to receive. He asks 
not, how much will sufficiently compensate you — but how 
much can you hold ? Why, listen to the lavish God. He 
tells us that our present faculties are not adequate to grasp, 
to conceive the things which he hath prepared for the obedi- 
ent, or for those that love him — which is the same thing. 
Thus, doubtless, those first laborers and first sufferers in the 
cause of Christianity — Paul, and Peter, and the rest — w^ere 
requited to the utmost of their capacity of receiving. But 
now, suppose that when one of them — suppose that when 
Paul ascended from the scene of his martyrdom into the 
l^resence of God, there had come to him from the holy mount 
a voice like this : " Well done, good and faithful servant ! 
Manifold have been thy labors, and signal thy sufferings, in 
thy master's cause. And now, in requital of them, behold 
that distant globe floating in the vast of space. It is thy 
empire. Go, assume the entire administration of it with all 
its peoples, and nations, and kingdoms. Rule it forever." 
The blessed saint w^ould have been stricken with more con- 
sternation at having such a crushing burden laid upon his 
shoulders, than he ever felt in those sunless days and starless 
nights when he was buffeting with the tempests of the sea 
of Adria. " No, my God, it is too much for me. It is a 
task to which I am totally inadequate. Rather send me back 
to earth. For sooner w^ould I labor and suffer there a whole 
eternity, than occupy, for a single hour, a post in which my 
conscious incapacity must of necessity render me unfaithful." 
Was Christ no more than Paul — mere humanity? How, 
then, are we to regard the proposition to invest him with 
the dominion of a universe, expecting him to administer the 
affairs of all the nations and empires of all its worlds, in im- 
partial wisdom, truth, and righteousness ? Was this the just 
requital of thy sufterings, O Immanuel? It was rather 
in the nature of a punishment. It was laying on thy shoul- 
ders — not a badge of honor to adorn thee, but an unsupport- 
able load to crush thee. No; as Messiah assumed the 
position of a voluntary servant of his Father, even so, in 
requiting him, the eternal Sire, acting on his uniform princi- 
ple, graduated his reward with reference to his capacity of 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 353 

holding. But he knew he could hold a universe. He knew that 
in him was the omniscience, in him was the omnipotence, in 
him was all the God that made the intelligent administration 
of ten thousand worlds as easy to him as the administration 
of a single household to a human worm. He shaped the 
reward of his obedience in larger dimensions than man had 
ever received, or could ever desire, because he was more 
than man. He conferred upon him the honor and the glory 
of a universal dominion — which none but the shoulders of 
God could bear — because he was God. 

V. Observe the fitness and the iequity of that arrangement 
by which the government was placed on the shoulders of 
Messiah. When we read of a Spanish governor endeavoring 
to supplant the conqueror of Mexico in the midst of his ca- 
reer, and thus rob him of the glory of his conquest, we pro- 
nounce it the excess of meanness. Turn to a far different 
example. Paul the apostle might have gone into places 
where others had begun to preach the gospel, and in virtue 
of his apostolic authority might have taken their work out 
of their hands and finished it as successfully as they could, or 
even more so. But this, he assures us, he carefully abstained 
from doing, lest he should seem to enter into other men's 
labors, and deprive them of the credit that was due them. 
We have formerly indicated this as a most noble trait in this 
apostle. But every truly noble trait of character in man 
hath its counterpart in God. See how he exemplifies this in 
the case before us. Shakspeare calls this world a stage. It 
is a stage, which God created to perform the drama of Re- 
demption on. Its overture was performed at the cross ; but 
there yet remained the great business of so overriding and 
overruling the acts and scenes of this world's individual, na- 
tional, and universal history, as eventually to bring out the 
glorious catastrophe of "peace on earth and good will to 
men." But who should do this ? We answer, God the Fa- 
ther might have done it himself Nothing in the nature 
of the case forbade but he mio-ht have restricted Messiah to 
Tiis priestly ofiice, to intercede in heaven as he had died on 
earth ; while he himself, the prime mover in the work of re- 
demption, might have taken into his own hands the business 
of caiTying it on, of ruHng and overruling all things so as to 
bring about its completion. And this would seem to be the 
more congruous arrangement. For, in relation to the affair 
of human salvation, the Father acts as the Judge of all, and 

30* 



354: SERMONS BY THE LATE 

the Son as the propitiating Priest. Kow, according to our 
notions, the office of king and judge might be more appro- 
priately united in the same person than the office of king and 
priest. But for the Father to have assumed the regal, the 
executive office, and thus deprive Messiah of the glory of 
executing the scheme of redeeming grace which his obedient 
death perfected, was more than that disinterested Sire could 
do. No, no. " Thou faithful victim," he exclaims, " every 
beam, every ray, every sparkle of the executive glory of re- 
demption shall be thine. To thee the sceptre and the throne 
is given — the delegated sovereignty of heaven, and earth, 
and hell— to finish what thy cross begun. Be 'head over all 
things to the Church ' till thou perfect her in numbers and in 
grace, and present her faultless and complete before me. 
Use the angels as thy ministers, use the devils as thy slaves ; 
do thy pleasure in the world, its men and nations, till thou 
hast finished that work in righteousness, which thou /com- 
mencedst in blood, and all the fruits of redemption are 
gathered in ; and then let them be all thy own. Far be it 
from me to rob thee of an iota of them." Oh, when will men, 
in their transactions with each other, learn to imitate the 
lofty, noble disinterestedness of the glorious One above, in 
His transactions ! We answer, when they become like him. 
Narrow-heartedness is the natural but most unworthy char- 
acteristic of man. The way to cure him of it is, to bring him 
into sympathy with a generous God. The littleness, the con- 
temptible meanness of conduct, which so often makes one 
blush for his species, can find no place in the soul which the 
spirit of the gospel hath made godlike — hath stamped with 
the nobility of heaven. 

I. Christian ! behold and do obeisance to thy Martyr- 
King. Many a monarch has lost his crown on the field of 
death. Messiah was crowned there. See you how, on that 
head bowed in the unconsciousness of dissolution, how on 
that brow still clammy with the sweat of agony, descends — 
its price full paid by the agony of that dissolution — descends 
the imperial circlet of universal power ; and on that shoulder 
— it bore, and bent beneath, the cross just now — are laid the 
keys of death and hell. And not — if the conception of the 
sainted Payson were realized — not if all the host of worlds 
that live along the interminable space were assembled in one 
vast circle to adorn the mighty victor's brow — would his 
crown be half so glorious as in its actual reality. Its gems 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 355 

are blood-drops, each of which is worth a universe. The 
histre which gilds it is derived from Calvary. In a word, as 
it was his sufferings which gave him the right to reign, even 
so his present exaltation, contrasted with those sufferings, 
makes him appear more glorious now than before his yet 
unhumbled Godhead was veiled in flesh. And now, as the 
vicegerent of God, as the glorious bearer of universal gov- 
ernment, — even as he is given to the universe as its sovereign, 
to the world as its master, to kings as their King, to lords 
as their Lord, to devils as their prison-keeper, to death as its 
scourge, and to hell as its conqueror, — even so is he given to 
the Church as her head and guardian, to you as your pro- 
tector. Feel you not safe in the hands of his controlling 
power? His! It is the bleeding lover, of thy soul who is 
charged with thy destinies, and armed with omnipotence to 
save thee ; w^ho giveth his angels charge concerning thee, 
and on whom the responsibihty is laid to guide thy feet in 
the way of peace, to keep thee from the hour of temptation, 
and lead thy soul to God. And you are given to him, par- 
taker of the sure mercies, member of the house, and there- 
fore subject of the throne of David, and of him who sit? 
thereon. Sayst thou Amen to this arrangement? Remem- 
ber, he that is not willing to obey Christ, — to subject his 
whole heart, and soul, and life, to his gospel statute-book, — 
he is not willing that Christ should reign. He hath a spirit 
that would rob Messiah of the crown, and hurl him from the 
throne which he earned by the agonies of his death. Chris- 
tian, wouldst thou dethrone thy King? The only honest 
way to answer " No," is to obey him. 

II. Hath not Christ done enough, dear sinner, to deserve 
the government which God hath given him? Why, ques- 
tion the inhabitants of the first sinless world you might fall 
in with on a journey through the universe ; ask them what 
king they are under. They answer, " Under King Messiah." 
— ''And wherefore is he your king ?" — " By the appointment 
of God, because he hath died for a guilty world — which is 
reason enough ; for the story of his humiliation and death 
has so affected us, that we would give him our hearts if each 
of us had a million." But is his humiliation and death a 
sufficient reason why those, to whom neither the one nor the 
other had any personal reference, should own him for their 
Lord ? And is it not a sufficient reason why you, for whom 
ne was humbled and for whom he died, should own him for 



356 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

yours? "I have crowned him," saith Jehovah, " with glory 
and honor for the suffering of death." — " Let all worlds, let 
all tlie angels of God worship him." Is it for those, is it for 
the inliabit^mts of that only world for which he bore the suf- 
fering of death, is it for you, as one of them, to disregard 
the mandate ? Why, if an elect angel should refuse to join 
in that symphony of heaven, " Worthy is the Lamb that was 
slain to receive power, dominion, honor, glory," doubt you 
that he w^ould instantaneously be hurled, with hideous ruin 
and combustion, down to bottomless perdition ? Dear soul, 
you think him unworthy of either. He requires you to ac- 
knowledge his power to save, by throwing yourself upon it. 
He requires the dominion of your heart ; he requires you to 
do honor to his cross, by embracing it as your only hope. 
He requires you to give glory to his mediatorial sceptre, by 
becoming its walling subject. You have never yet done 
either. And think, we pray you, if the simple fact, that the 
Lamb was slain, is so cogent a reason why the angels of 
heaven should yield him their hearts' dominion — that if one 
of them should withhold it, hell would be his just requital — 
what hast thou to expect, who will not yield thy heart's do- 
minion to the Lamb that was slain for thee .^" 



" And were hy nature the children of wrath, even as othersP 
— Eph. ii. 3. 

It is one of the peculiar infirmities of human nature, that 
men who have risen from insignificance to any species of emi- 
nence, usually manifest a disposition to ignore, to keep out of 
view their humble origin, their mean original circumstances, or 
their mean extraction ; as if the contrast were a derogation ; as 
if it were less honorable to achieve distinctions than to inherit 
them — to acquire a name that shall reflect lustre on an ignoble 
ancestry, than to bear a name that has no lustre except what an- 
cestry has given it. And even where examples have occurred of 
the opposite description, — like the Persian blacksmith of whom 
Kibbon tells you, w^ho, having saved his country, and been 
raised to the throne in consequence, w^ould have his veritable 
smith's apron borne before him as his royal banner ; oi* AVil- 



KEY. WM. B. WEED. 357 

liam the Conqueror, who to the- clay of his death never failed 
to append to all his royal charters, among his other titles, the 
term that denoted the illegitimacy of his birth, — we fear 
there is at least as much of the pride that saith, "I will have 
men know that I am great enough to defy invidious compari- 
sons with my low antecedents," as of the mamianimitv that 
is not ashamed to own them. Now Paul, at the period when 
he wrote so large a part of the New Testament, was one of 
the greatest of men, according to the highest standard of 
greatness — a great saint — a great apostle — not a whit behind 
the chiefest of either ; but he had not forgotten, and assuredly 
it was not his fault if anybody forgot, that he was once some- 
thing humiliatingly different from the one and the other. In 
the fulness of his years, in the ripe maturity of his saintship, 
in the bright culmination of his world-wide apostolic fame, 
he cannot write a dozen lines to his son Timothy Avithout 
reminding him that he " was before a blasphemei-, and a per- 
secutor, and injurious." Walter Scott represents a titled 
young Englishman as almost thrown into convulsions by the 
token that betrayed him as the child or the descendant of a 
mechanic. But our apostle makes voluntary confession of 
the fact that he Avas something far w^orse than that — a child 
of wa-ath. "Among whom we all had our conversation, ful- 
iilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were" — 
we, you and I — "by nature children of wrath." And to 
w^hat is this free exposure of his former character and career 
ascribable? Not to the pride, the vain coveting to have 
men admire the contrast between his present and his former 
self Not even altoQ:ether to the mao-nanimitv that M-as too 
honest to conceal w^hatever was discreditable in his former 
self He had a higher motive than either — not to magnify 
himself, but to magnify the powder, the grace, the love of 
God. While he styles himself to the Corinthians "less than 
the least of the apostles, and not meet to be called one, be- 
cause I persecuted the Church of God," he adds immediate- 
ly, " but by the grace of God I am what I am." So, w^hile 
here he identifies himself wdth the saints of Ephesus as origin- 
ally a child of Avrath, observe what immediately follows: 
" But God, w^ho is rich in mercy, for his great love where- 
with he loved us even when we were dead in sins, hath quick- 
ened us together with Christ ; that in the ages to come he 
might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness 
towards us throus^h Christ Jesus." Had he been the proud 



358 sermo:ns by the late 

Pharisee that once he was, racks could not have wrung from 
him such humiliating confessions. Had he been other than 
the unselfish Christian that he now was, those confessions 
would doubtless have been tinctured wdth something of a 
Ivousseau-like spirit of self-glorification. But from the bosom 
of Paul the demon of self was exorcised. The glory of God 
had become its reigning idol; and he was just as ready to 
ofifer incense to it, just as ready to glorify him at his own 
expense, as in any other way. "Persecutor, blasphemer — 
child of wrath — yes, I was all this — let the churches of my 
own age, let tlie world of all ages, know it; and no matter 
what they think of me for having been so, if they will but 
extol the grace, the love, and the working of the mighty 
power of God, which have made such a persecuting blas- 
phemer, such a child of wrath, what I am." 

We would first offer certain explanatory remarks, with a 
view to show, with some precision, what the apostle means 
by the sweeping sentence which he pronounces on all man- 
kind, himself included. In ten jDregnant words he has drawn 
the original moral picture of himself, of the Ephesian Chris- 
tians, and of all others — a picture consisting of two princi- 
pal features, or rather of one exhibited in the dark ground- 
color of "children of wrath," with the additional shade, 
"by nature," to deepen it. Behold the interpretation of 
each. 

1. "Child of wrath" is a Hebraism, by which we mean an 
idiomatic phrase, having a peculiar meaning in that language, 
which cannot be clearly and fully exhibited in ours by a lit- 
eral translation of the words of which it is composed. Such 
idiomatic expressions abound in every language — our own, 
for instance. "A man of parts," "a man of substance" — 
these phrases have a perfectly intelligible meaning to your 
ear ; but translate them, word for word, into a foreign, into 
the French or Spanish language — and the Frenchman or the 
Spaniard would attach no such meaning to theiii ; he would 
never suspect that they meant an accomplished man in the 
one case, or a rich man in the other. That is to say, the 
same thing is not only denoted in different languages by dif- 
ferent words, but sometimes also a given combination of 
words in one language has a peculiar meaning, different from 
the same combination of the corresponding words in another 
language ; and this is what we mean by an idiomatic expres- 
sion. So " children of wrath " does not convey to our minds 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 359 

the same direct and precise idea which the corresponding 
Hebrew words would to a Jew. To exhibit that precise 
idea, we will refer you to a passage where our translators 
have rendered a similar phrase by an English one which is 
exactly equivalent to it. In 1 Samuel, 27th chapter, we find 
Saul, with his general, Abner, and a company of his troops, 
in vengeful pursuit of David. The latter, though he had 
never read Paul's admonition as to heaping coals of fire on 
the head of an enemy, had nevertheless learned it from the 
dictates of his own forbearing spn'it, and determines to put it in 
practice — to beat down his enemy with the subduing strokes 
of mercy — to kill him with kindness. Saul and his company, 
all unconscious that the game they were hunting was so 
near, had pitched their tent in the hill of Hachilah, and laid 
them down to sleep. David approaches the slumbering king, 
removes the spear that was at his bolster, and the cruse of 
Avater that was by him, and departs. And now, having put 
a sufiicient space between him and the foe, he determines to 
apprise him how he had been in his hands, and how he had 
spared him. He calls to Abner in a mingled strain of irony 
and rebuke, for having guarded his master so negligently. 
" Art not thou a valiant man, and who is like to thee in Israel ? 
The thing is not good that thou hast done. As the Lord 
liveth ye are worthy to die, because ye have not kept your 
master the Lord's anointed." But the literal Hebrew reads 
thus : " As the Jehovah liveth ye are children of death, be- 
cause," &e. One who knows nothing of that language can 
see, at a glance, that the meaning of this is just what our 
translators have given. Abner and his men had been guilty 
of a gross breach of duty. They had fallen asleep without 
leaving a single sentinel to watch, and thus left their royal 
master exposed to a hostile incursion, which nothing but the 
forbearance of the generous foe prevented from being a fatal 
one. And for this, says David, for thus carelessly exposing 
your sovereign's life, ye are children of death ; ye deserve to 
lose your own lives — ye are worthy to die. The original of 
our text presents a specimen of precisely the same phraseol- 
ogy ; only here our translators have rendered it word for 
word, instead of rendering by an English phrase of equiva- 
lent meaning. That equivalent phrase, as you see from the 
parallel example, — and we could quote any number more if it 
were needful, — is, deserving, worthy of wrath — the wrath of 
God ; and we have given this long explanation in order to 



360 SKRMONS BY THE LATE 

satisfy you that this is no arbitrary interpretation, but just 
what the known words of speech in the native language of 
the wi'iter of the text requires. 

2. But this declaration as to the desert of the subjects of 
the text, involves, by obvious implication, an assertion as to 
what they are. Not always with man, but always with 
God, moral character and moral desert go hand in hand. 
We have known men, and women too, hunted down by 
society, voted a child of contempt and scorn, when they 
were not half so deserving of either as many of their perse- 
cutors and detractors. A judge like Jeffries, a tyrant like 
Henry VIII., a ruffian like Haynau, might pronounce men 
children of death, who were infinitely less worthy and infi- 
nitely more fit to die than themselves. And even the most 
upright tribunal may, from error in judgment, or the un- 
suspected imposition of false testimony, condemn the guilt- 
less and absolve the guilty. But God is too all-knowing to 
be liable, too just to be capable of doing either. In the 
administration of his legal governtnent, what men deserve is 
Avhat they are sure to receive at his hands. Therefore what 
they receive is proof of what they deserve, proof of what 
they are. As David pronounces Abner and his men worthy 
of death because they were wanting in their duty to their 
king, so when Paul, by inspiration, saith that the subjects of 
the text are worthy of wrath, the obvious because implied is, 
that they are wanting in their duty to their God. Gross 
and criminal delinquency in relation to the king of Israel, is 
the asserted basis of the former sentence. Gross and criminal 
delinquency in relation to the King of heaven, is as clearly 
the implied basis of the latter. To say — adopting the fore- 
going Hebraism — that a moral being is a child of divine love, 
is to say that he is a righteous, a holy man ; for, "the right- 
eous Lord loveth righteousness." " The Lord taketh pleas- 
ure in them that fear him." To say, in the language of tlie 
text, that a moral being is a child of divine wrath — obnox- 
ious to it, deserving of it — is to say that he is an ungodly, 
sinful, unrighteous man ; for, '' the wrath of God is revealed 
from heaven against all unrighteousness." 

3. A word more as to the comprehensiveness of this sen- 
tence — the extent in which it has been taken. Much has 
been written to disprove its universality. You are aware 
there is a certain fish that, when pursued by the enemy, dis- 
charges a black fluid to discolor the water ; thus concealing 



KEV. WM. B. WEED. 361 

itself and preventing pursuit. We have been reminded of 
this in observing how much ink has been shed, how much 
wordy sophistry has been employed to explain away the 
sweeping compa^, and damning depth of meaning, which 
obviously belongs to the text. It looks like a desperate 
effort of human nature to fabricate a court of escape from 
this awful truth that comes to take it prisoner, and lay it in 
chains of universal guilt before God. Thus the celebrated 
Locke — who, you know, combined to some extent the theolo- 
gian wdth the philosopher — labors hard to prove that Paul 
has no others in view except the peculiarly wdcked heathen — 
the gross Gentile idolaters of his own time. His idea is that 
Paul means only peculiarly bad men. "Thus," says he, 
" the Jewish theists cannot be included, because they had not 
been idolaters for many generations." As if the apostle had 
said a word about idolatry on the part of Jew or Gentile in 
this whole passage ; which, you see, he has not. As if there 
w^as no way of walking according to the course of the world, 
and serving the devil, and becoming a child of wrath, except 
by gross idolatry. Then how does he explain the apostle's 
putting his own Jewish self into this category of children of 
wa-ath ? Thus : Paul was a native of Tarsus — a Gentile city ; 
he was now writing from Rome, w^here the Church consisted 
chiefly of Gentile converts, and therefore, when here he uses 
the first person plural — " we all had our conversation, and 
were by nature children of wrath" — he does not speak of 
himself as a Jew, but identifies himself with the Gentile fel- 
lows-citizens he was born and lived among, or with the Gen- 
tile fellow-Christians he was now living among. I should be 
very unwilling to rest my exemption from the title of child 
of wrath on such an exegesis, which, if it were not sanctioned 
by so great a name, we would say w^as labelled with absurd- 
ity on its very forehead. The plain account of the matter 
is this. Paul, for a purpose respecting which we shall have 
more to say before we have done, had faithfully and point- 
edly reminded the Ephesian saints of their original character : 
" dead in trespasses and sins, wherein in time past ye walked 
according to the course of this world, according to the prince 
of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the 
children of disobedience" — the world's followers — the devil's 
slaves. But what then, saith the apostle ; does this savor of 
undue severity? Were ye worse than others? Were we 
better than you? Not at all; for among these children of 

31 



362 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

disobedience we all had our conversation, all whom God hath 
quickened together with Christ ; that is, all of us who are 
now Christians were originally children of wrath even as 
others, even as you. Could he possibly employ an expres- 
sion which should give that ominous title a more universal 
scope ? The Christians of Ephesus — he himself and all the 
Christians of his day beside, and all others — subtract these 
from the existing race of mankind, and how many would be 
left? Would not the subtrahend and the minuend be 
identical? But all those he includes under the common 
designation of children of wrath. And this is no more than 
repeatedly, and in still more positive terms, he has done else- 
where. " We have before proved," says he, " both Jews and 
Gentiles, that they are all under sin," — and of course under 
condemnation, — ''that every mouth might be stopped and 
all the world become guilty before God ;" and if guilty, 
then worthy of his wrath. So in the text. Ephesians, all 
Christians, I ajid all others, " children of wrath," — that is 
worthy of it, because we are all under sin, — all guilty before 
God. 

4. And this by nature. This relationship to the wrath of 
God is not an accidental one, but a natural one, — -just like a 
man's relationship to his father or brother, — implying, of 
course, that the sin and resulting guilt, which makes us ob- 
noxious to the wrath of God, is no mere thing of accident or 
circumstances, but the direct product of our nature. Here, 
again, strenuous attempts have been made to break the force 
of this term — to give the word nature a non-natural sense, 
and save Adam's brood the degrading ignominy which its 
literal sense attaches to them. It is labor thrown away. 
There is not a phrase in the language which you understand 
better than hy nature^ or naturally. Man, by nature, or nat- 
urally, walks on his two feet, instead of going upon all fours; 
that is, it is one of the instincts of his physical constitution 
to employ but two of his limbs in walking. Man, by nature, 
or naturally, makes use of animal food; that is, a taste for it 
is one of the properties of his physical constitution. And so 
generally — the word nature^ when applied to man, or beast, 
or any thing else, has reference to properties, or qualities, 
which are inherent in their original constitution respectively ; 
in distinction from those which are the result of circum- 
stances, of external means and foreign influences. Every- 
body knows the difference between a natural faculty and an 



EEV. WM. B. WEED. 363 

acquired one — between the faculty of hearing and that of 
articulate speech. Everybody knows the difference between 
a natural taste and an acquired one — between the taste for 
milk and the taste for brandy. Every one knows the differ- 
ence between a natural disposition and an acquired one — be- 
tween the disposition to locomotion, and the disposition to 
patient, continuous, and laborious thought. ISTow, the ques- 
tion is, "Do the ISTew Testament. writers employ this term 
in this popular and familiar sense, or in any different one ?" 
What does Paul mean when he says, " We who are Jews by 
nature, and not sinne;'s of the Gentiles ?" What is " Jew^s 
by nature" but born Jews — not such by proselytism, as 
many Gentiles were, but by natural extraction from a Jew- 
ish ancestry? What does he mean w^hen he says to the 
Corinthians, " If thou wert cut out of the olive-ti'ee, which 
is wild by nature, and wert grafted, contrary to nature, into 
a good olive-tree ?" Leave the fact he is explaining out of 
view, and take his metaphor. Is he not describing a tree 
which differs from the good olive-tree in its original, organic 
properties? And the grafting from the one to the other 
against nature^ does it mean any thing less than such a 
union as no process appropriate to or resulting from the origi- 
nal properties of each, would ever have produced? And 
what does he mean in saying to the Galatians, " Howbeit, 
when ye knew not God, ye did service to them which by 
nature are no gods ?" Why, that these false deities, though 
they were gods in the estimation of men, — venerated as such, 
worshipped as such, — yet they were no gods in fact — imagi- 
nary beings, or mere men ; illustrious, perhaps, in their time, 
and therefore absurdly deified, but destitute of the essential 
properties and attributes of Deity. It is plain, then, that 
the apostle uses the term, just as we do, to denote those 
properties which belong to the native constitution of things, 
or creatures, in distinction from those which are incidental, 
or acquired. Thus, when he styles himself and all others 
'' children of wrath," " sinners by nature," he means that 
their sinfulness is not incidental, or acquired, but just natu- 
ral — one of the native properties of their moral constitu- 
tion. 

5. There are some who insist on a different interpretation 
of this phrase, " by nature ;" and, to prepare the way for an 
examination of it, we will refer to a passage in 1 Corinthians, 
where it is asserted that the apostle uses the word in a greater 



364 - SERMONS BY THE LATE 

latitude of meaning. "Doth not our nature itself teach you, 
that if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him ; but if 
a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her ?" Here it is 
said that nature means nothing more than usage, custom. 
In that case, the Corinthians might have demanded, " Why 
make so much of it, then? We have renounced a great 
many of our former usages since we became Christians, and 
why not this ?" And do you think that this apostle would 
have used such strong expressions with reference to what he 
considered as an arbitrary custom — calling the observance of 
it a glory, and non-compliance with it a shame or disgrace ? 
It is not the usage but the source of it that he means by na- 
ture. Doubtless the distinction between the sexes, as to the 
length of their hair, is a custom; but it is a universal one, 
found among all nations, and in all ages, with scarcely an ex- 
ception. Now, how is this universal custom to be explained ? 
Whence did it originate ? We answer, in nature — in that 
native, innate sense of fitness which pronounces short hair 
appropriate to*men and long to women. And it is to this — 
not to the custom in question, but to the original cause of it, 
the sense of propriety, which is part of our natural constitu- 
tion — that the apostle appeals, when he asks, " Does not 
nature itself teach you that what I say on the subject is 
correct ?" 

Even so the universal sinfulness of man, which Paul as- 
serts, and which the moral history of mankind corroborates, 
points us to something in their common nature as the cause 
of it. It has been asserted that, by nature^ in the text, we 
are to understand that second, corrupt, dead nature, which 
men form in themselves by habitually indulging in vicious 
inclinations. But how come they universally to indulge in 
vicious inclinations ? It is granted that an individual may 
betake himself to a practice, like that of intemperance, which 
originally does violence to his nature, and continue it till it 
becomes a confirmed habit, strong as a second nature ; but 
it is vain to represent sin and self indulgence, in the broad 
sense of the term, as a practice which does violence to our 
nature in the first instance, and becomes a second nature 
only as the effect of long continuance. This might do, if - 
there were only a few thousand, or even a few million sin- 
ners in the world. But the truth is, there is nothing but 
sinners in it, and never has been, except so far as the special 
grace of God has made them otherwise. And the question 



KEY. WM. B. WEED. 365 

is, How comes it to pass that this worldful of men, replen- 
ished and re-replenished, as generation after generation has 
passed away, has always presented a spectacle of several 
hundred millions of moral beings all agreeing to do violence 
to their nature — to indulge in propensities to which they are 
naturally repugnant — to sin against God without any natural 
disposition to do so ? The case would be without a parallel. 
Who ever heard of the whole world uniting in a custom, or 
practice, which no one had any original inclination to ? Who 
ever heard of a universal custom, or practice so habitual as to 
be a second nature in everybody, which could not be intelli- 
gibly traced to some principle, taste, or appetite, in the first 
nature of everybody ? Universal and natural are everywhere 
correlative terms. And surely — call it a custom or a prac- 
tice, if you will — sin, moral depravity, is the last thing in the 
world to be an exception to this. For, say ye, is sin so hon- 
orable, so essentially attractive and delightful to the moral 
and immortal being, whom it first degrades and then destroys, 
that men — all men — are likely to take to it in defiance of 
their nature ? Are the fetters of her bondage such golden 
chains, such soft and lovely flower- wreaths, that men — all 
men — are likely to put them on, in spite of their natural in- 
clination ? Is it so gainful, so profitable to be a child of 
wrath, that universal man is likely to force his nature in or- 
der to earn the title in the only way he can — by becoming a 
child of sin ? No ; whatever else men do in spite of nature, 
it is inconceivable that they should all unite in one insane 
concert to court the degradation of a course of moral de- 
pravity and sin, and dare its consequences, revealed by con- 
science, fulminated from heaven, except from a positive and 
instinctive proclivity of nature. If the universality of any phe- 
nomenon whatever proves a law, natural or moral, the uni- 
versality of sin — the fact that it is an admitted feature and 
acknowledged exhibition of the character of every man and 
woman that ever lived— is a proof of a universal, innate pro- 
pensity to sin, of universal native depravity. '' We need 
not," says Chalmers, "dig into a spring to ascertain the 
quality of its water, but to examine the quality of the stream 
that flows frona it. It is thus that we verify the doctrine of 
original sin from experience. Should it be found true of 
every man that he is actually a sinner — should this hold uni- 
versally true of every individual of the human family — if in 
every country of the world, and in every age of the world's 

81* 



3&6 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

history, all who have grown old enough to be capable of 
showing themselves w^ere transgressors against the law" of 
God — and if among all the accidents and varieties of condi- 
tion to w^hich humanity is liable, each member of humanity 
still betook himself to his own wayward deviations from the 
rale of right — then he sins purely in virtue of his being a 
man ; there is something in the very make and mechanism 
of his nature which causes him to be a sinner. The innate and 
original disposition of man to sin is just as firmly established 
by the sinful doings of all^ and each of the species, as the 
innate ferocity of the tiger is by the way in which this fero- 
city breaks forth into actual exemplification in each individ- 
ual of the tribe. If each man is a sinner, it is because of a 
preceding tendency to sin that so taints and overspreads the 
whole nature as to be present with every separate portion of 
it. And to assert the doctrine of original sin in these cir- 
cumstances, is to do no more than to assert the reigning 
quality of any species, w^hether in the animal or vegetable 
kino^dom. It is to do no more than to afiirm the ferocious 
nature of the tiger, or the odorous nature of the rose, or the 
poisonous nature of the foxglove. It is to reduce that w^hich 
is true of every single specimen of our nature into a general 
expression, that we make applicable to the whole nature. 
And to talk of the original sin of our species, thereby intend- 
ing to signify the existence of a prior and universal disposi- 
tion to sin, is just as w^arrantable as to affirm the most certain 
laws or soundest classifications in natural history." 

We have not done with the subject, but must conclude at 
present with a brief application. 

I. We have said that the reason why Paul reminds the 
Christians of Ephesus of their original native depravity and 
consequent wrath-exposedness, and confesses his own,. is to 
magnify the power and the mercy of God. " God, who is 
rich in mercy, hath quickened us together with Christ." Our 
text is the exponent of the meaning of these terras. You 
have, dear brethren, and can have, no adequate conception 
of what God can do, — no adequate estimate of the riches of 
his merciful love, — unless it stands among the intelligent con- 
victions of your soul that you are by nature children of 
wrath. It is not much that the indulgence of the eternal 
Father should be extended to your infirmities and foibles ; 
human charity can go as far as that. But that such a nature, 
infected with the original taint and putrefaction of sin, should 



KEY. WM. B. WEED. 367 

not prevent his 'great love from abounding towards you — 
this is charity of a Godlike stamp — as far beyond the most 
generous human specimen of that property, as human chari- 
ty, according to the apostle, is above every other human 
accomplishment. But it was with no mere human charity 
and sympathy that he regarded the wretched, polluted, hell- 
doomed nature which his unerring eye beheld in thee. He 
hath quickened it, revitalized it, with a communicated spark 
of his divine nature ; made that sin-cursed fountain, so black, 
and foul, and turbid, — in which no form or shape of moral 
goodness could liye, — pure enough already to reflect, in some 
measure, his own sacred face, and leap up in the bright ebul- 
litions of a living holiness like his. Behold the grandest 
miracle of a wonder-working God ! There are no loftier, no 
more adequate, no more sanctifying views of God in Christ, 
than to contemplate him as the loving God who would, and 
the mighty God who could, change thee from a child of wrath 
by nature into a child of adoptive love. But, in order to this, 
you must have the intelligent conviction that you are by 
nature a child of wrath. 

II. We would be glad to say a word, in conclusion, to 
forestall the prejudice of our dear impenitent friends against 
the doctrine of which we have commenced the discussion. 
We freely admit that it is saying the worst thing that can 
be said of you, to assert that you are sinners, children of 
wrath — not from the compulsive force of circumstances, but 
from the spontaneous force of nature ; not because evil influ- 
ences have unconsciously led you astray, but because your own 
nature has voluntarily gone astray ; not because of your hard 
fortune in being associated with sinners who have moulded you 
into their own likeness by the law of assimilation, but because 
you are a man, and by the self-enacted law of your own 
moral system : in a word, that all that makes you a sinner 
and child of wrath is not to be shouldered off upon foreign 
causes, but has its springs, its cause, and ground, and reason, 
all within yourself Hence, w^hile you ^vould smile at the 
simplicity of the truism, if we should say it is natural for you 
to see, hear, feel, understand, think ; we should not wonder 
if your self-esteem should rise in positive disgust when we 
say, what is just as demonstrable on evidence of equal con- 
vincingness, that it is natural for you to sin. But we beg you 
to observe that it is not we that say, at least on our own 
authority. We simply echo God's word. Can you doubt 



368 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

its truth ? Can you believe that he Avho from Sinai forbade 
us to bear false witness against our neighbor, hath violated 
his law amid the sanctities of heaven by bearing false witness 
against his neighbor, or bidding his apostle do so in his 
name ? And there is every thing in the manner in which 
this truth is delivered to disarm prejudice, and induce a do- 
cile convii3tion. Say you, "It is a hard saying; who can 
bear it ?" Why, the best man of his time — ay, and confess 
it, too. That which he charges upon you, he owns in regard 
to himself, and he charges upon all others. Claim you to be 
better by nature than the chief of the apostles, and all man- 
kind beside ? Nor is it in any thing like the wantonness of 
vituperation, or the bitterness of an unfeeling taunt, that the 
apostle asserts this humbling truth. His object in asserting, 
our object in discussing it, is to give you a just apprehension 
of the riches of God's mercy, and make you an eager suppli- 
ant and happy recipient of his free, redeeming grace. The 
conviction expressed in Psalm li. 5, " Behold, I was shapen 
in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me," is the 
natural antecedent to the glad assurance, " The Lord is my 
strength and song ; he also is become my salvation." These 
humiliating words of confession — we are by nature children 
of wrath — are, as others are, just the preluding notes to that 
triumphant strain begun on earth with — "Behold what 
manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we 
should be called the sons of God ;" and ended in heaven with 
— " Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in 
his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God 
and his Father, to him be glory and dominion for ever and 
ever." 



" And were hy nature the children of wrath^ even as others,''^ — 
Eph. ii. 3. 

We last Sabbath attempted an analysis and exposition of 
these words, showing, from parallel analogy, that by " chil- 
dren of wrath" we are to understand loorthy^ deserving of 
wrath ; that to be deserving of divine wrath is to be a sin- 
ner, seeing that, under the legal economy of God, moral 



REV. WM. B. WEED. ^ 369 

character and moral desert are always strictly correspondent ; 
and it is against all unrighteousness, and that alone, that 
" the wrath of God is revealed from heaven." We showed, 
further, from the text and context, that the apostle obviously 
intends to include in this designation the whole human race, 
the terms he employs being incapable of any thing less than 
a univer&al application ; and that, therefore, the words be- 
fore us are tantamount to an assertion that sinfulness, a 
propensity to wrong moral action, is one of the original, 
native properties of all mankind — this being the popular and 
familiar meaning of the expression " by nature" in this con- 
nection ; w^hile it is obvious from a reference to his employ- 
ment of the expression in other cases, that he uses it, just as 
we do, to denote the essentialities of things and creatures, 
in distinction from w^hat is incidental to them. It is still 
further obvious from the fact, that here, as well as in other 
passages of his writings, he represents this sinfulness as uni- 
versal. In every specimen of classification there are these 
two pi'incipal divisions : the essential, that which enters into 
the nature of the thing ; and the incidental, that which is 
not necessarily a part of its nature. But what is the basis of 
this distinction ? We answer, universality, or the contrary. 
In botanical classification the stamen and pistil are the essen- 
tial parts of a flower, because they are found in every speci- 
men of the floral species ; while the calyx, for instance, and 
the corolla, though found in many specimens, are not univer- 
sal, and are, therefore, not included among its essential com- 
ponents. A double circulation of the blood, respiration, 
lung-breathing, a feathery covering, and the anterior ex- 
tremities arranged for flight, are reckoned among the natural 
or essential properties of a bird; but not any particular 
shape of beak, or talons, because as regards them there is no 
such universal uniformity. Warm blood, distinctly articu- 
lated extremities, a curved spine, are enumerated among the 
natural, or essential properties of the animal constitution of 
man ; but not any particular color of skin, or hair, or eyes, 
because here there is no such uniformity pervading the 
whole species. For the same reason we speak of a natural 
reason, and a natural conscience, because the reasoning 
faculty, the inward sense of the distinction between right 
and wrong in moral actions is found, in some^ degree, in 
every individual man. ^N'ow it is just on the principle that 
runs through all these familiar specimens of classification, 



370 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

that we pronounce the disposition, propensity, proclivity to 
wrong moral actions — that is, sinfulness — to be one of the 
natural properties of mankind ; because it is found, it is de- 
veloped in every individual man as unexceptingly as the 
stamen is found in every flower, the feathery covering in 
every bird, the curved spine in every human body, the pro- _ 
gi'essive reasoning faculty in every human soul, and the 
right-and-wrong-discriminating conscience in every human 
heart. Why is " a creature without a eonscience," not the 
proper definition of a man? Because it excludes one of 
the natural properties of man ; and why natural, but because 
universal ? . ISTo more is " a creature without a proneness to 
sin," the proper definition of man, but of either more or less 
than one, — of an angel, or a brute, — because it excludes one 
of the natural properties of man ; and natural, because uni- 
versal. 

But universality is not the only mark of naturalness. We 
w^ould now request your attention to the fact, that there are 
several other grounds on which we pronounce a given phe- 
nomenon to be part of the nature of the thing, or creature, 
in which it manifests itself; and that any one of them holds 
true resioecting the moral depravity of man, and proves that 
to be part of his nature. 

I. Early development. That which begins to betray 
itself in an individual, in its proper fruits and visible opera- 
tions, at a very early period, as soon as the powers of his 
system are capable of it, we consider a native property, or 
quality of such individual, however it may be with others. 
Whence comes the common saying, that the poet is born so 
— while the orator is made so ? Because in many or most 
of the former class, a poetical turn has been found to be 
among their earhest exhibitions of mind. Pope says he 
lisped in numbers ; that is, his expressions took a poetical 
shape before he was old enough to speak distinctly. The 
same has been remarked of others — by Mr. Irving, in our 
young countrywomen, the sisters Davidson, who began 
making rhymes as soon as they had acquired even an imper- 
fect use of language. So you call the child a natural singer 
who takes to singing, modulating his voice according to the 
notes of the gamut as soon as he can talk. So, in the figures 
which West, while almost in his swaddling-clothes, scratched 
with his charcoal pencil on the floor of his nursery, his par- 
ents perceived the indications of his natural talent for paint- 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 371 

ing. You see the child must make some positive advance in 
intellectual development, before he can learn to imitate the 
example of others. Hence any peculiar bent which he mani-" 
fests too early to be ascribed to imitation, before he is old 
enough to be capable of intelligently observing and copying 
what others do, is appropriately ascribed to the instinct of 
some natural propensity. 'Now while the Scrij^tures declare 
that there are none originally righteous — no, not one (in other 
words, that all are originally wicked), it tells us that "the 
wicked," that is all^ " go astray as soon as they are born." 
Is it not the least that we ean understand by this, that they 
begin to sin as soon as they can ? And does not observa- 
tion confirm this statement ? Is it not true that the child 
betrays propensities to evil as soon as he is capable of mani- 
festing any moral propensities at all, and long before he is 
capable of being taught them by precept or acquiring them 
from example ? Long ere you can possibly make him under- 
stand the meaning of the terms, " obstinacy," " perverseness," 
" w^ilfulness," " selfishness" — long ere he is capable of recog- 
nizing, or discriminating these properties in others — he shows 
himself obstinate, perverse, wilful, selfish. To what can you 
ascribe this but to nature ? How does one take to any thing 
except from didactic instruction, from imitating others, or 
from natural instinct. But in the present instance — in the 
early development of wrong propensities, feelings, passions — 
both the two former are out of the question. It must then 
be owing to the latter. If almost before the child be capa- 
ble of rejoicing his earthly parent's heart by the manifesta- 
tions of a filial affection for him, he begins to pain it by the 
exhibition of a mind, a heart, unsubjected to the law of God 
— what is the conclusion, but that among the originalities of 
his nature there is a carnal mind affiUated with evil, and en- 
mity to God ? 

II. We observe, in further corroboration of the foregoing, 
that that phenomenon in an individual is regarded as a part 
of nature, which cannot be referred to any change in him 
subsequent to the commencement of existence. You hear it 
said of yonder habitually feeble person, that he had naturally 
a robust constitution, though he has been physically but a 
broken reed ever since childhood : that is, his first physical 
development was a vigorous, healthy one ; but some subse- 
quent cause — a fit of sickness, probably — revolutionized and 
wrecked it. Hence, you do not call this feebleness natural, 



372 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

because, though it began very early, it was the result of a 
change which he experienced still earlier. So the deformed 
limb, the deficient sense — bhndness, deafness — the imbecility 
of mind — idiocy — are not regarded as natural, however early 
they commence, if they can be traced to some previous change 
in the subject. Does human depi'avity come under this ex- 
ception ? Take the example last referred to. Idiocy is some- 
times produced by disease, by contusion of the brain, &c. 
Here it is not natural. When is it so considered ? Is it not 
where it cannot be traced to any such change, to any known 
cause operating subsequent to birth — though at the same 
time, and in the nature of the case, it cannot be detected till 
some time after birth ? Is not the same true of depravity ? 
Its exhibitions, of course, are not simultaneous with birth, 
but they are very early. Does any change occur in the 
mean time to produce it ? But what produces that change 
so universally — producing in every individual of the species 
a propensity to sin which he was originally a stranger to ? 
We have seen that human influences are out of the question ; 
that every individual develops a sinful disposition before he 
is capable of being aifected by them : and even were it other- 
wise, it is inconceivable that they should have such a univer- 
sal potency, producing a moral revolution in every son of 
Adam. There is, then, but one possible cause of this sup- 
posed change, and that is a morally impossible one : I mean 
the direct efficiency of God ; to wit, that God regenerates to 
depravity the soul of every human infant, creates it anew in 
unrighteousness and unholiness — a work worthy of Satan, if 
he could do it, but impossible to God. For what agent could 
he employ in it ? His Spirit ? But the Spirit is holy, inca- 
pable of descending to such foul business. His own will ? 
But his will respecting his creatures is, not their sinfulness, 
but their sanctification. Indeed, the idea cannot be enter- 
tained in the mind a moment, Avithout starting objections 
infinitely more weighty than were ever alleged against the 
doctrine of native depravity. That this depravity, then, is 
native, is fully substantiated by the fact that, while it is de- 
veloped in every specimen of the species at the earliest pos- 
sible period, it is not produced by any change taking place 
previous to that, and subsequent to birth — there being no 
possible cause wliich can produce it. 

III. Another discriminatinsc feature in a natural attribute 
in man is, that it operates freely, spontaneously. We have 



KKV. WM. B. WEED. 373 

said that ''natural" and "universal," when applied to the 
properties of things, are synonymous; and so are "natural" 
and " spontaneous." We are floating down the stream, when 
we act according to nature. We are struggling up it, when 
we resist nature. Say, then, — let the experience of saint or 
sinner speak, — is it down or up stream work to indulge sin- 
ful propensities ? Is it a hardship to have your own way, in 
spite of God and man ? Is it a trial to your spirit to be self- 
ish ? Is it self-denial to live for yourself, and not for man or 
God ? Does it cost you a struggle to be angry w4th your 
offending brother ? Does it need argument, persuasion, ur- 
gent inducement, to call up in your bosom the disposition, 
— the Satan-like, the God-forbidden disposition, — to render 
evil for evil, w^ong for wu'ong, blow for blow ? Is universal 
charity, is doing good to all men, is forgiveness of injuries, 
is overcoming evil with good — in a word, is the disposition 
to conform and subject your will to the will and word of 
God, and do just as he bids you — are these things among 
the spontaneous congenialities of your soul? Are these dis- 
positions, w^hich unconsciously and spontaneously influence 
you by their own instinctive power, without the aid of any 
foreio-n inducements or foreiOT motives? Alas! the w^orst 
and the best of us all know better. He to whom habit and 
progressive sanctification has made a Bible-governed course 
of life most easy and spontaneous, knows but too w^ell that 
it w^as far otherwise to his original constitution ; but too 
often now finds in him a law that, when he would do good, 
evil is present with him : and what is that but a law of na- 
ture ? It is true, " the way of transgressors is hard ;" but 
not in the sense in which it is hard for the play-loving school- 
boy to apply himself to his books, for the lazy to w^ork, or 
for the active and energetic to keep still : it is hard, because 
of the opposition of conscience, which has to be resisted, and 
the tremendous consequences which have to be defied, in 
order to pursue it. In this respect, it is like making one's 
way through tangled thickets, and thorns, and briers. But 
if you should see a man doing so, sturdily and steadily press- 
ing forward, without flinching or pausing a moment, in spite 
of the lacerations that made him bleed at every pore, you 
would conclude that it must be some strong internal impulse 
that drove him on. And so the transgressor : the very fact 
that, for the reasons just mentioned, his way is so hard ; the 
very fact that, at every step, he is kicking against the pricks, 

32 



374 SERMONS BY THE LATE • 

proves how mighty is the internal impulse which makes him 
so dehberately and spontaneously persist in it. Have you 
seen yonder river in a freshet, with the wind and the tide 
both opposing its current, and yet rolUng that current on- 
ward in the teeth of both by the mere spontaneous force of 
its own momentum ? And what gives it such a spontaneous 
and forceful momentum, outmatching those opposing influ- 
ences? The answer is, "Nature — the natural law of gravi- 
tation." So, when you see the sinner, — and this is the origi- 
nal phenomenon which every human being presents, — with 
conscience resisting, with hell threatening, yet with a cool 
persistency that nothing can arrest, without an effort and 
without a rational motive, yea, in spite of every rational mo- 
tive, holding on his sinful career ; and if the question is asked, 
"To what is the tremendous and spontaneous momentum to 
be ascribed, which thus bears him forward in such a course, 
against every thing ?" what answer can you give but " Nature 
— the law of natural depravity ?" 

IV. Another mark of a natural taste, property, propen- 
sity, is that it is exceedingly hard to overcome. The history 
of the human mind is full of examples of this. How many 
a father has been obliged to relinquish his cherished purpose 
respecting the future career and profession of his son, in con- 
sequence of his original and unconquerable proclivity in 
another direction ? You read of the young student of law, 
whom an ambitious parent had half persuaded, half com- 
pelled to become so, occupying his hours of study in reading 
Cowley and Dryden, instead of Coke and Blackstone ; scrib- 
bling with rhymes the papers he was required to copy, till 
his father Avas obliged to give up the point and leave him to 
follow the natural bent which he could not conquer — to be 
the poet which nature made him. So, when the father of 
Pascal, perceiving the original aptitude of his gifted child for 
mathematics, yet fearing that such studies might endanger 
his infant intellect, bade him let them alone — vdeprived him 
of text-books and every means of pursuing them ; when he 
found that he was constructing text-books in his own mind, 
inventing sciences which he was forbidden to study in au- 
thors — " God help the child," says he, " he must do as he 
will, for there is no resisting nature." But the examples of 
this indomitableness of nature are still more abundant and 
universal in the history of the human heart. The man in 
whom sinful indulgence has had its perfect work, hardening, 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 3Y5 

sterilizing his spirit, making it dead to feeling, baiTen of sym- 
pathy for aught that lives — if there is any exception — if in 
that moral desert there is a single thing of sympathetic life 
and beauty, a single flower which still blooms in spite of tlie 
sin-bhght which has killed every thing else — depend upon it, 
it is some strong natural affection — it is the love of parent, 
sister, child — which, having its roots in the very depths and 
core of the heart, and nourished by the last poor remnant of 
its yet unpetrified flesh, cannot be eradicated, will not be ex- 
tinguished, though all else of the better nature of the man has 
been. How often has the parent, who, disgusted w4th the 
conduct, the disobedience, the perverseness of his offspring, 
has expelled him from his home — vowed never to see him 
again — never to be reconciled — yet found that nature is 
stronger than resentment — that the yearnings of parental 
love are mightier than the dictates of outraged parental 
rights and authority — and wooed back the exiled Absalom, 
without even waiting for his repentance. And if here we 
are obliged to exclaim with the mother of Douglass — " Oh 
nature ! nature ! w^hat can hold thy force ?" have we not as 
much reason to say the same with reference to the power of 
sinful appetite and sinful affection ? Is here a less significant 
display of the unconquerableness which belongs to nature ? 
Answer ye, who have tried to eradicate the wayward wrong 
propensities of children, and when, by the power of persua- 
sion, threats, and punishment, you have succeeded in doing 
so, so far as acts and words are concerned, have unmistak- 
ably discovered that you have only driven in the enemy from 
his outposts, and neither destroyed nor even conquered — have 
seen the bad feeling, passion, that dared not act or speak itself 
out, yet impudently looking out upon you from the eye, red- 
dening or paling in the cheek, or pouting in the lips. An- 
swer ye, w^ho have seriously tried to eradicate your own sin- 
ful feelings and evil passions. Have you any reason to charge 
Solomon with exaggeration when he says, " Better is he that 
ruleth his spirit, than he that taketh a city ?" Know ye that 
Troy, that Alesia, that Gibraltar were taken in half the time, 
and w^ith not half the desperate struggle that you have em- 
ployed in endeavoring to conquer any single propensity, and 
have not completely succeeded yet ? Know ye — I speak to 
those who have fiirly and honestly tried the experiment- 
that it is the hardest^ thing in the world to kill a depraved 
appetite? That it is like the wood, which, w^hen you have 



376 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

cut it clean down to the ground, left nothing of it visible 
above the surflice, still sprouts again ; like the conflagration, 
which, extinguished at one point, breaks out in another; 
like the wind, whose blast expires in one direction only to 
commence blowing in another ? And this is the more notice- 
able, because man is in so many other respects such a flexible, 
versatile creature. The fact that in so many other cases he 
shows such an easy faculty of overcoming his attachments, 
gives a peculiar and signiflcant prominence to their invinci- 
bility in this. What changes and mutations are we constantly 
witnessing in society — all implying the overcoming, the mor- 
tification of some positive attachment or other ? You see 
men quitting the business to which the pursuit of years had 
wedded them, when circumstances make it desirable to be- 
take themselves to a new vocation. You see the lawyer, the 
physician, the minister of Christ, at the demand of health, 
or other causes, quitting their chosen, cherished, loved pro- 
fessions, and descending to the pursuits of humbler life, with 
not a tithe of the struggle which it requires a sinner to quit 
the ways and the wages of sin for the pursuit of life eternal. 
You see men transplanting themselves to a land of strangers 
from the society in whose bosom they were born and bred, 
and which includes all the elements of social happiness they 
have ever known, with not a tithe of the efibrt that it costs 
the sinner to transfer his position from the ranks of God's 
enemies to the brotherhood of his friends — from the city of 
destruction to the walls of Zion. Is the power of the in- 
ward attachment that creates this struggle — that makes this 
eflbrt necessary — any less than nature's ? A man can over- 
come the love of home, and leave it forever, to seek a new 
one at the antipodes — can overcome the love of country, and 
become a permanent resident in a land of strangers — can 
overcome the love of all whom he holds most dear on earth, 
at least so far as to voluntaiily banish himself for life from 
their endeared and cherished friendship. But all these — love 
of country, home, family — are confessedly natural aflections. 
Say then. Is that aftection less than natural which is harder 
to be overcome than any of them — the love of sin, the power 
of sinful appetite, which — look all around you for specimens 
— neither intei-est, in its most pregnant meaning, nor duty, 
in its most sacred aspect, nor all that addresses itself most 
invitingly to their hopes, most terribly to their fears, can 
neither drive nor persuade them to give up ? Again we ask, 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 377 

What makes the power of sin, and the attachment to it, thus 
stronger than every thing except Omnipotence, but the fact 
that it holds an intrenchment in the very citadel of nature, 
twines itself around the root, and feeds itself into indomi- 
table strength upon the fatness of the original native con- 
stitution of man ? 

V. Against all this there is one consideration which has 
often been confidently advanced, and on which we now de- 
sire to offer a word or two. Our first parents, it is said, had 
originally no natural propensity to sin ; and yet they sinned. 
And be it that all their posterity sin too : why should the 
same fact in the case of the latter be assigned to a cause which 
confessedly did not exist in the former ? Why should it be in- 
sisted that we sin because of a natural propensity, when it is 
confessed that Adam sinned without one ? You perceive that 
the pith of this argument, so far as it has any, consists in the 
assumption that, where an effect is the same, nothing more 
can be argued as to the nature of the cause, whei'e it hap- 
pens universally and uniformly, than where it happens once. 
To which w^e reply, — 

1. This assumption is contrary to the decisions of common 
sense, which teaches us to discriminate as to the cause of the 
same effect in different cases, even in the same individual. 
A young man who never knew the taste of intoxicating 
liquor, and has no appetite of his own which could tempt 
him to touch it if left to himself, is induced by the force of 
strenuous persuasion to take a single glass, and becomes in- 
toxicated. You see him subsequently manifesting an incu- 
rable thirst for it. No temptation is needful now to induce 
him to grasp the fatal cup ; on the other hand, no possible 
infiuences can wrest it from his grasp. Well, you see him 
to-day, for the hundredth or thousandth time, greedily seek- 
ing and pouring the liquid poison down his throat, and kin- 
dling his brain into the madness of inebriation. Would you 
see no difference between his first and his present habitual 
intoxication ? Would you not say that the former w^as owing 
to a cause out of himself, — temptation, — and the latter to a 
cause within himself, to the force of growing ajopetite which 
had become a second nature ? 

2. But if we know better than to confound the cause of an 
effect where it appears under different aspects in the same 
person, much more where a single individual in the one case, 
and a world in the other, are the subjects of it. "If," says 

32* 



378 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

President Edwards, " a particular tree, or a great number of 
trees standing together, have blasted fruit on their branches 
at a particular season, yea, if the fruit be very much blasted 
or entirely spoiled, it is evident that something was the oc- 
casion of such an effect at that time ; but this alone does not 
prove the nature of the tree to be bad. But if *it be observed 
that those trees, and all other trees of the kind, wherever 
planted and in all soils, countries, climates, and seasons, and 
however cultivated and managed, still bear ill fruit from 
year to year, and in all ages, it is a good evidence of the 
evil nature of the tree : and if the fruit at all these times and 
in all these cases be very bad, it proves the nature of the 
tree to be very bad." You see the bearing of the illustra- 
tion. The first sin of Adam, and of some of the angels, was 
no proof of a depraved nature ; but the universal sinfulness 
of Adam's offspring, in all times and ages, in all circumstances, 
and against all dissuasive means and motives, is. To assert 
a depraved nature here, is agreeable to what the reason of 
all mankind pronounces, to wdt, that it is not to be inferred 
that what a person is seen to do once, he has a fixed, abiding, 
natural inclination to do ; but that fixed principles, prevail- 
ing inclinations, natural tastes and tempers, are to be inferred 
from repeated and continued actions. It is thus that we 
judge of the tempers and inclinations of persons, ages, sexes, 
tribes, and nations. Apply this distinction in the case before 
us, and the argument from the sin of Adam vanishes. The 
existence of a permanent natural cause is argued from a 
permanent and general or universal effect. But the first sin 
of Adam was not a permanent but an original act; as far as 
human history is concerned, it was not a universal but an in- 
dividual effect ; and therefore, whatever it was produced by, 
we have no right to refer it to any permanent natural cause. 
But permanence and universality are the characteristics of 
the sinfulness of his offspring — universal as the race, perma- 
nent as their duration ; and therefore it does prove the ex- 
istence of a corresponding permanent cause in them, a de- 
praved moral constitution, a nature predisposed to sin. 

In the further prosecution of this subject, we shall have 
occasion to speak of the origin of this native depravity, and 
consider certain objections against the doctrine. 

There is a certain country governed by an upright, but 
inflexible and absolute ruler, who has promulgated a most 
rigorous statute against a certain degrading crime. Capital 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 379 

punishment is the penalty for every example of it. The 
country is an extensive one, inhabited in part by ignorant 
barbarians, who know little or nothing of the law ; but ex- 
tensive portions of it are occupied by an intelligent popula- 
tion, w^ho have the written law in their hands, perfectly un- 
derstand what it forbids and threatens, and know their 
sovereign is determined to maintain it. But they all break 
it, civihzed and savage all alike. There is nothing so univer- 
sally characteristic of the whole nation as the commission of 
the crime in question. Every one of them begins to do it as 
soon as he is capable of it — and the instant that he does, the 
supreme authority pronounces sentence of death upon him. 
Behold the sovereign of a nation of capital convicts. But 
that sovereign is sensible to the blessedness of mercy, and 
willing to exercise it. He reprieves them all — postpones 
their doom, sends accredited messengers abroad to apprise 
them of the fact, to warn them to repent and break off the 
crime in question, and that whosoever does not, within a 
certain time, shall surely die. But with the mass of the 
people this reprieve, this warning, this certainty of death if 
they heed it not, has no effect at all. They do just as they 
did before. It is part of their every day's business to break 
that law, to commit that crime. What makes them ? You 
answer in a moment — nature. There must be in their very 
make, and mechanism of their constitution, an invincible 
aptitude for the forbidden practice ; otherwise it is incon- 
ceivable that it should be so universal — inconceivable 
that threatened death cannot drive them from it, or 
offered mercy win them from it. This, of course, is supposi- 
tion. Make it fact by putting God for the Sovereign, and 
mankind, yourselves, for the subjects. And say, with the 
same premises — are we not forced to the same conclusion ? 
If from that distant Micronesia, where American mission- 
aries have just unfurled the standard of the cross, you could 
show a native many novelties that would astonish him — 
buildings of a size and architecture, roads and conveyances 
of a construction, means of wealth and mental culture of a 
variety and perfection, that he never dreamed of: but if you 
w^ere honest enough to wind up the exhibition by showing 
him your own interior self, your own native heart, there 
would be nothing there to surprise him, nothing new — just 
such a heart as his own in its prevailing characteristic, in 
its proneness to depart from the rule of right moral action, 



380 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

in its unsubjecteclness to the law of God. That law is writ- 
ten in his heart — it is written still more plainly in your 
}3ible ; but you both violate it. Immeasurably his superior 
in other respects, as fellow-sinners you stand on a common 
floor with him, as his fellow-sinner. You know the penalty 
of that law, the capital punishment of the soul far better 
than he does, but you break it just the same. You know, 
what he does not, that mercy stays execution of its penalty ; 
but that does not prevent you from violating it. You know 
that justice will one day enforce execution of its penalty; 
but that does not prevent you from violating it. And is this 
world's conspiracy to defy its Maker, — is this fell consan- 
guinity of all its ages, races, complexions, its men of the 
wilderness, its denizens of the most favored haunts of civihza- 
tion — that fell consanguinity where there is neither Jew nor 
Greek, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free, but sin is all and 
in all— in you, dear sinner, for instance, who are consciously 
pursuing a line of moral action in the teeth of what Heaven 
prescribes, in spite of Heaven's vindictive justice, and what is 
more, in spite of its mercy, — is this a fact for whicli less than 
nature can afford an adequate cause ? Does it not bespeak 
in your race, and in you, a sin-infected, sin-possessed nature, 
which naught but divine medicaments can purge, which 
naught but a divine magic is adequate to exorcise, and which 
ought to send you to the footstool of God, saying — " Create 
in me a clean heart, and renew a right spirit within me." 



*' Zo, this only have I found ^ that God hath made man iipright ; 
hut they have sought out many inventionsy — Eccl. vii. 29. 

Last Sabbath we endeavored to show that even as any 
other natural phenomenon in any specimen of organic life, 
as the leaves of the tree, the tints of the flower, the spots of 
the leopard, the claws of the lion, the beak of the vulture, 
are ascribed to the first-created ancestor of the species, trans- 
mitting these properties through successive generations — so 
thc^ ultimate cause of the native depravity of man is to be 
found in the first ancestor of his species, made in the image 
of God but made over again by himself in the image of the 
wicked one, corrupting his own nature by transgression and 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 381 

transmitting the fatal original taint to all his posterity, assim- 
ilating all its two hundred generations to himself by the nat- 
ural process of the law of propagation. We desire, however, 
that the foregoing illustrations may be regarded as only 
general, and not specific ones ; that is, offered simply as in- 
volving the same general principle of transmission that ap- 
plies in the present case, but not as entirely corresponding^ 
to the specific mode of its application here — which you will 
see hereafter we are far from holding. 

We endeavored also to vindicate this view from several 
objections against it considered as a matter of fact ; intimat- 
ing, at the same time, that it had been objected against on 
certain moral grounds which were reserved for future 
consideration. 

To these we would now request your attention. 

I. That it seems to fix on the Creator the responsibility of 
human sinfulness. It is confessed that God the Sovereign 
has a certain responsibility with reference to every thing that 
takes place in this world, seeing that nothing occurs, or has 
ever occurred in all the cycles of its history, without his 
compulsive or permissive purpose. But whatever God the 
Maker is answerable for, — be it the size and shape of the 
globe, be it the number and variety of its existing species, 
or be it the corrupt nature of man, — of that he must be re- 
garded as the positive author. And the question is. Does 
the doctrine of human depravity, as we have explained it, 
fix upon the Creator the responsibility thereof, in any such 
sense as to make him the positive author of it ? We will 
endeavor to explain precisely w^hat, in our view, he has to do 
in the matter, and leave you to judge. 

1. In every department, in every specimen of the visible 
creation, we detect the presence and the operation of certain 
laws, modes, conditions of being, as they are called, which 
bespeak their source in the mind, in the originating counsels 
of God, in that they partake of his prime attribute of immuta- 
bility. He hath written his moral law on the heart of man ; 
he hath written his natural laws on every thing, in characters 
no less enduring and unchanging. Indeed, this invariable 
uniformity is the test, the clue, by which we arrive at the 
discovery of a natural law ; it is by that essential feature that 
we recognize it. N^ewton beheld an apple fall to the ground. 
The question arises. Is here a merely isolated or a uniform 
and invariable phenomenon ? Do all substances, too heavy 



382 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

to be supported by the air, and unsupported by any thing 
else, fall to the ground uniformly and invariably ? Having, 
by a sufficiently comprehensive induction, ascertained that 
such was the fact, he felt authorized to make proclamation 
of a new-discovered law, the law of gravitation. So, having, 
by subsequent observations, ascertained its uniform and in- 
variable application to every part of the explored universe, 
with equal confidence he proclaimed it to be the law of all 
worlds as well as this. I proceed to observe, — 

2. If the uniformity of these natural laws proves them to 
have emanated from the mind of an immutable Deity, not 
less does it bespeak his benevolence. It is of the last impor- 
tance to the well-being of this world and its inhabitants, that 
the law^s and conditions which govern the material frame of 
nature, in its several departments, should be regular and uni- 
form, and not capricious, intermittent, variable. To see this, 
just think a moment what the effect would be if the law of 
emanation, for example, in yonder solar body, Avere so fluc- 
tuating, that he should shed light upon us one day and dark- 
ness the next ; if the laws of optics were so fluctuating, that 
the same object should reflect to our eyes at one time an 
image of ten times the size that it does at another ; if the 
law of cohesive attraction were so fluctuating, that the par- 
ticles of the same substance should firmly adhere together at 
one moment, and fly asunder the next ; if the law of gravi- 
tation were so fluctuating, that all bodies should tend to the 
earth's surface now, and equally tend to fly ofl" from it to- 
morrow ; if the laws of the earth's revolutions were so fluc- 
tuating, that spring should sometimes be followed by summer 
and autumn, and sometimes by winter, directly! You have 
but to follow out these illustrations, to perceive that in no 
way is the goodness of God, in the adaptation of external 
nature to the constitution of man, more clearly made mani- 
fest than in placing the former under laws as fixed and im- 
mutable as his own nature, and which he has permitted to 
be suspended and set aside only with such a rareness as gives 
to such phenomena the fitting name of miracles, marvels, 
wonders ; and these only for the paramount object of creden- 
tialing the messengers of his revealed truth. 

3. But now observe that, though the uniformity of the 
laws of nature is thus clearly ascribable to divine benevo- 
lence, though its object and general end is the good of man, 
it is often productive of incidental evil of the severest de- 



REV. ^VM. B. WEED. 383 

scription ; which nevertheless it is contrary to God's known 
plan, as discovered by facts, to interpose to prevent. The 
same law of gravity w^hich prevents us, our houses, trees, and 
crops, from flying off from the earth into chaos, occasioned 
the destruction of forty or fifty lives at IsTorwalk, a month 
ago ; but God did not suspend the law in order to prevent 
that catastrophe. The same law which causes certain sub- 
stances to kindle into consuming conflagration under the ap- 
plication of fire, enabling us to protect our apartments and 
our persons from the wintry frosts, may occasion the destruc- 
tion of the documents on which that poor widow relies to 
maintain her title to all the property she has in the world ; 
may occasion the destruction of the tenement which that 
laborer has just built for himself out of the hard earnings of 
years ; occasioned the destruction of two hundred lives on 
board the Lexington^ and has inflicted a similarly awful death 
on thousands and thousands more, under similar circum- 
stances. Does God interpose in such cases, and suspend the 
law ? Not at all ; he lets it take its course, whatever evil 
results may follow. This is the known and notorious fact, 
and always has been : and the most we can say is, that the 
direct object for which these laws were appointed was a good 
and not an evil one ; that the evil which results from them is 
only incidental ; and that we are to thank God for the good, 
and not to blame him for the evil. 

4. Behold the application of all this ! One of these natu- 
ral laws is, " Like father, like son ;" the law which assimilates 
offspring to their parents in every department of life — in all 
the general properties of their nature. The obvious end of 
the law is a good one, — to keep the several species distinct, 
and in the department of animated existence to attach the 
several individuals of the same species to each other by a 
mutual similarity. Sociality is an element in the happiness 
of every thing that breathes. But likeness, mutual corre- 
spondence, is the basis of society, both in man and brute. 
Hence, the Creator has provided for a common identity in 
the several classes of animals, by the law of assimilation afore- 
said between the filial shoot and the paternal stock. To 
meet the constitutional law that like associates with like, he 
has ordained the natural law that like produces like; and 
thus laid the foundation of society among the various orders 
of animated being — birds, beasts, and men. View that so- 
ciety as it exists in its most endearing, most happifying, nat- 



384 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

ural form, under the family roof, and say, Is not the special 
secret of the sweet communion and happiness that reigns 
there, to be found in the fact that its members are, so to 
speak, all run in the same mould by the law of assimilation 
aforesaid ? There is no mistaking, then, the intent and pur- 
pose of this law\ It was ordained to answer ends of the 
most important and beneficial description. Now, when the 
first parents of our race corrupted their nature by transgres- 
sion, that law of assimilation prescribed that their ofispring 
should partake of it. That unanswerable question, " Who 
can biing a clean thing out of an unclean ?" — holiness out of 
unholiness, — had a direct application here. God could do it. 
He caused the holy Jesus to be miraculously born of a sinful 
woman ; but, without such a direct exertion of almighty 
power, the law of transmission made it certain that the off- 
spring of Eve and Adam would be the moral counterpart of 
themselves. And God did not interpose to prevent the tre- 
mendous incidental evil that was threatened to result from 
the operation of a natural law whose original and appropri- 
ate end was only good. And this is all, and the most that 
can be said. It is not an isolated example. It is a specimen 
of his general mode of proceeding. He did here precisely 
as he does in other cases, — letting^ the law of nature take its 
course, notwithstanding the incidental evil which may result 
from it. And just in the sense in which he is the author of 
that evil in other cases ; just in the sense in Avhich he was 
the author of the death of that dear infant last week, — not 
preventing the operation of a natural law which incidentally 
destroyed its life, — in just that sense, and in no other, he is 
the author of human depravity. To say that he makes men 
sinners by the same direct, deliberate, intentional efficiency 
by which he made Adam holy, is a slander upon his benevo- 
lence and holiness, and what cannot be inferred from any 
exposition of the doctrine of depravity which I ever heard 
or read ; certainly not from any that I have given. God 
was the literal and responsible procreator of man's upright- 
ness, but not of the inventions by which that uprightness was 
subverted. 

II. If now it should be said that, admitting God is not the 
direct, efficient, creative author of our corrupt nature, the 
source of all our sin and misery, still it is inconsistent with 
his benevolence to have permitted us to acquire it by such 
a process as the foregoing, or by any other : I answer, in one 



r 

I 



KEV. WM. B. WEED. 385 

word, it is no such thing — for the simple reason that he did 
permit it. I do not think it any violence to his omniscience, 
his all-knowingness, to suppose that in this, or in any other 
case, it ever entered his mind that he must not do thus and 
so till he had considered whether such comparative infinitesi- 
mals as you and I would be likely to be satisfied with his 
proceeding, would be able to see through it, would be able 
to reconcile it with his goodness or any other attribute. I 
really do not see any reason to believe that if you or I had 
been a contemporary with Adam, and if, when his moral 
complexion, and that of all our race, was at the point of de- 
cision, when Satan was plying him with his temptation, and 
his heart was on the point of yielding — if at the moment one 
of us with all the consequence which belongs to our earth- 
worm entity had been admitted into the council-chamber of 
the Eternal, and told him: You must keep that father of a 
world from sinning, you must fortify him with special grace 
against the temptation ; or, at all events, if he must fall, you 
must so order it that he shall fall alone — you must arrest the 
operation of the natural law, which, otherwise, will impress 
his moral likeness on his posterity, involving all their gener- 
ations in sin and misery like his own, or else I shall doubt 
your benevolence — we really see no reason to believe that 
the Eternal would have minded the admonition. We think 
there is a most prodigious probability that he would have 
done exactly as he did in spite of it. The simple question is. 
Do you deny that God is good — infinitely good ? And the 
answer is. That you dare not believe him otherwise ; it would 
destroy your peace forever to believe that he, with whom 
you have to do, and who has so much to do with you, in 
whose hand your breath is, is the spiteful enemy of the hap- 
piness of his creatures. And aside from this, such is your — 
such is any one's experience of the goodness of God, that 
he who should attempt to deny it, would find the words stick 
in his throat, like Macbeth's amen. The fact, then, of the 
divine benevolence must be considered as settled beyond dis- 
pute. Hence, though in hypothetical cases we are authorized 
to argue as to what this God of goodness may do, yet when 
the question relates to what he has done, it is absurd to say 
that a God of goodness could not do so. The proof that he 
could, is that he has, God bade the father of the faithful 
sacrifice his son " on one of the mountains that I shall tell 
thee of." Was it for Abraham to begin to argue — "It is in- 

38 



386 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

consistent with divine goodness to bid me do what the world 
will pronounce an unnatural crime ?" Not at all ; the only 
question is, Does God command it ? If he does, there is an 
end. That he is a benevolent God I know, and it is for him, 
not me, to say what is or is not consistent with his benevo- 
lence. And so, the only question here is. Did God permit 
the primeval pair of the human race to fall by transgression 
from the estate wherein they were created, and all their pos- 
terity to become sinners in consequence ? That he did we 
know as a matter of fact. And we know another thing, as 
a matter of experience and divine revelation — that he is in- 
finitely good. Therefore it must be consistent with his good- 
ness to permit these results, because he did permit them. 
And if we do not know enough of his motives to see that 
consistency as plainly as might be desired, it is enough to be 
satisfied that he does. But in the mean time, and in the 
name of reason and common sense, let us not undertake to 
deny the fact of the universal native depravity of man be- 
cause of any such difficulty — any such imagined inconsistency 
with divine benevolence. For if we do, we may as well 
deny known facts in regard to the magnetic power, the 
growth of a tree, the operations of mind both awake and 
asleep, or all the doctrines of natural religion, even to the ex- 
istence of a God ; for in relation to all these things we can 
ask questions w^hich no man can answer, and start difiiculties 
which no man can remove. 

III. It is objected that the doctrine of native depravity is 
inconsistent with our being moral agents, and with the Scrip- 
ture doctrine of a just and impartial retribution. But what 
is a moral agent? A being who is subject to the moral law 
of God, capable of moral actions — that is, actions which are 
either good or bad ; rewai'dable for the former, punishable 
for the latter. Now, where lies the point of the inconsistency 
you complain of between our natural depravity and our 
moral agency and accountability ? 

1. Is it in the fact that we are sinners? But that very 
fact presupposes that we are moral agents. We could not 
be the former without being the latter. For what is a sinner 
but a bad moral agent, capable of fulfilling, but preferring 
to violate the moral law of God ? It requires no less than 
that capacity and that preference to constitute him a sinner; 
but it requires no more than that capacity and that pref- 
erence to constitute him a moral and accountable agent. To 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 387 

say, then, that our being sinners, is inconsistent with our being 
moral agents, is as absurd as to say that Avalking, running, 
reading, speaking, are inconsistent with physical vitality — 
inconsistent with being alive. We cannot do either with- 
out physical vitality. Xo more can we sin if destitute of 
moral agency. 

2. Do you mean, then, that if we have a depraved inher- 
ited nature, then we are not sinners — that is, not capable of 
moral action, not capable of preferring good to evil, and 
therefore not accountable for our so-called evil doinQ;s ? But 
if we are not sinners, then we are either so many unfallen 
and perfect Adams, or so many angels, or gods, or brutes. 
Which of the four ? You do not pretend to be either. Why 
then you are a sinner — there is no other alternative : and if 
a sinner, then you must be a moral agent, capable of right 
and wrong moral action; capable of obeying, capable of 
disobeying the moral law of God, and of course accountable 
to him for doing the latter. But, — 

3. Do you still demand. How can I be accountable for 
what I cannot help ? and how can I help being a sinner, if I 
have the depraved nature, that you speak of, born with me, 
and inherited from my progenitors, and through them from 
Adam ? Before replying to this, — 

(1st.) Let us understand one another. What do we mean 
by "an inherited depraved nature?" You have derived 
from your parents, and ultimately from your first parents, a 
certain complement of limbs, a certain cast of features, hair 
of such and such a color, and so on. You are not to blame 
for any of these things, and you are not accountable for them. 
Neither God nor man can bring an action against you for 
not having the feet of a lion, the claws of an eagle, the fea- 
tures of the Phidian Jupiter, or the Pithian Apollo. You 
cannot help, as regards these physical properties, being what 
you are ; and to require you to be in any of these respects 
diffei-ent from what you are would be unjust, because it 
would be requiring a physical impossibility. Now be it 
that your depraved nature is as truly a matter of inheritance 
as any of the foregoing ; is there such a correspondence be- 
tween it and those physical properties, that you are no more 
to blame for the manifestations of that depraved nature, no 
more to blame for being a sinner, than for having the bodily 
shape and features that belong to you ? This is the ques- 
tion ; take this for answer. The child Jesus, capable of good 



388 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

and evil, manifested from the first dawn of his moral agency 
a voluntary and exclusive propensity for the former. All his 
inclinations, all his desires and feelings ran from the first in 
the channel of holiness and obedience to God, as a matter of 
spontaneous choice and preference. This is what we mean 
by saying that he had a holy nature born with him. Adam, 
subsequent to his fall, capable of good and evil, manifested 
a voluntary and exclusive propensity for the latter. All his 
moral inclinations, desires, and feelings ran in the channel of 
sinfulness and disobedience to God, as a matter of spontaneous 
choice and preference. And this is what we mean w^hen we 
say that he now had a corrupt and depraved nature. And 
this is what we mean by the corrupt and depraved nature 
which you have inherited immediately from your parents, 
and ultimately from him — a voluntary disposition to go 
wrong, as a matter of un compelled choice and preference. 
See you that this is something quite different from having 
inherited limbs which you cannot change to wings, and a 
skin which you cannot change to the hard and indurated 
coat of the crocodile ? See you not that there is a marvel- 
lous difference between the hereditary physical constitution, 
in virtue of which you cannot, nor God nor man can justly 
require you to live in the air, or the water, like a bird, or a 
fish, — and the hereditary moral constitution, in virtue of 
which you voluntarily choose sin and its wages in preference 
to holiness and its results ? May not God justly require you 
to choose otherwise and to do otherwise, and justly condemn 
you if you do not ? 

(2d.) The common sense of mankind in general, and your 
own in particular, holds individuals responsible, and therefore 
condemns them for the voluntary indulgence of many natu- 
ral propensities. Here is one whom you have known from 
childhood, and always known as a grasping, covetous, avari- 
cious person. In his schoolboy days, the sand-bank that 
greedily drinks in every drop of water, but returns none 
back, was his fitting prototype — always ready to take but 
never to give — ready to get all he could out of his school- 
mates, but lucky he who could get any thing out of him. 
He would come to the school-room or the play-ground with 
his pocket full of fruit, but never was known to part with 
any except in the way of sale or barter, and then, ten to one, 
he was sure to get the best of the bargain. And even in 
those early days, you used to hear it said, " he comes hon- 



KEV. WM. B. WEED. 389 

estly " — that is legitimately — " by it ;" " he is just like his 
father," exhibiting in embryo the odious trait for which his 
parent had long been notorious. Well, the child continued 
to manifest that disposition in growing proportions, through 
childhood, and youth, and onward. He is now a man. You 
have had pecuniary dealings with him, and he has cheated 
you out of a thousand dollars. You have the best possible 
reasons for believing that he has done this in the exercise of 
a natural propensity which he has inherited from his father. 
But would that exonerate him in your view ? If the law 
could give you redress would you not appeal to it at once ? 
And if, when the case came on for trial, the defendant should 
offer evidence that the avaricious disposition which made him 
swindle you, was one which he derived from birth, and 
should plead this fact in bar of judgment, and the court 
should admit the plea and acquit him, could anybody con- 
vince you that you had not been most unjustly dealt by, by 
him, and the court too ? In plain words, you hold a man 
accountable for the voluntary indulgence of his bad propen- 
sities, no matter how he came by them ; and you would 
laugh at the person who should say, it was unjust to do so, 
because they came by nature. What then ? Do you expect 
to convince anybody — to convince your own reason, that it 
is unjust for God to hold you accountable for the voluntary 
indulgence of your bad propensities, because they came by 
nature ? Thou that condemnest another — and justly too, con- 
demnest thou not thyself? In branding with the nakedness 
of guilt the voluntary acts of others which have their source 
in nature, you anticipate the sentence which is pronounced 
on the voluntary exercises of your native depravity by the 
righteous law of Jehovah. 

4. Now see the ground of the righteousness of that sen- 
tence as pronounced by you on others — as pronounced by 
him on you. Men can and do, under the influence of suffi- 
cient motives, overcome their natural propensities, and act 
contrary to them. Did you never know a naturally lazy per- 
son overcome that disposition, and become industrious under 
the pressure of want, or the ambition to grow rich ? Did 
you never know a person naturally fond of expensive living, 
overcome that propensity, become saving, economical, in 
order to pay his debts, or to accumulate property ? Did 
you never know a person who was naturally timid, overcome 
that disposition, and play the dauntless champion in order 

33* 



390 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

to protect bis wife and children when threatened with vio- 
lence ? Men can, then, resist and overcome their native dis- 
positions if they will. And it is this which makes them justly 
responsible for the indulgence of their bad ones. Now has 
not every sinner sufficient motives to resist and overcome 
his native propensity to sin ? His obligations of obedience 
and love to Him w^ho made, bid him do so. The eternal 
poverty that threatens him as a sinner, and all heaven's 
riches placed at his disposal when he ceases to be, bid him 
do so. The preservation of his life, the very life of his soul, 
at which his sins are aiming an eternal death-shaft, bids him 
do so. The earthly motives w^hich have induced so many to 
iight down their native tastes and appetites, are but as the 
small dust in the balance to those arguments of eternal weight, 
which the highest dictates of duty, which the strongest in- 
centives of interest help to furnish ; bidding the naturally 
depraved one fight down his natural taste for sin, love the 
God that he naturally hates, obey the Sovereign that he 
naturally defies. Who doubts, then, that he can if he will, 
and that this makes him justly responsible for the indulgence 
of his depraved propensities, if he will not overcome them ? 
Mark you, that whatever man can will to do, he can will 
not to do. Depraved as men are, it requires not the addition 
of a single new faculty to make them holy. It only requires 
the will to make the members and faculties that they have 
already, the instruments of righteousness unto holiness, in- 
stead of the tools of the devil. And who is to blame if they 
have not that will ? Who, in the nature of the case, can be 
but themselves ? 

We have done with the doctrine, though there are certain 
collateral truths and lessons connected with it on which, if 
circumstances permit, we should like to enlarge at a future 
time. 

There is — what we are about to say is only suppositious, 
but very probably you would not need to go further than to 
your next neighbor to find it actually verified — there is a cer- 
tain article of food for which I have a strong natural appe- 
tite, an hereditary appetite if you please. But it utterly 
disagrees with my constitution. I never taste it without 
experiencing injurious effects; and I am perfectly satisfied 
that, if I were to partake of it freely and habitually, it would 
be fatal to my health, perhaps to my Hfe. I come to you and 
ask, "What shall I do?"— "Let it alone."— "But there is 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 391 

no eatable — animal, vegetable, or what not — for wliicli I 
have so craving an appetite, and always had from my birth." 
— " Overcome it." — " But I am not to blame for what is nat- 
ural to me. It is the fault of my parents, who transmitted 
it ; it is the fault of God, a forfeiture of his character of be- 
nevolence, to have permitted me to be born with such a 
taste, which it is so injurious to gratify. And therefore I 
mean to indulge it to the full extent, and expect that God 
will counteract the effect, and prevent it from injuring me ; if 
he does not, if I lose my health and life in consequence of 
that indulgence, I shall think that he has dealt by me very 
unjustly." — "Thou fool! if such is your purpose, get about 
your business. There is no reasoning with such wrong-headed 
absurdity." Dear unrenewed hearer, a propensity to do 
wrong, to love the creature .and not the Creator, and to run 
counter to the law and will of your Maker-Sovereign, is part 
of your nature. But another part of it is the conscience 
which forbids you to indulge it, and rebukes and stings you 
if you do, keeping tune with the word of God which annexes 
the wages of death to sin. ■ And another part of that nature 
is, a free will; free to choose or to refuse; free to prefer or 
to reject any thing, any course, any proposed act whatever. 
We give you, then, just such counsel as we know you would 
give us in the case supposed. Do what conscience, do what 
your injured Maker bids you ; do what you can, if you will 
— mortify that fatal propensity — repent — break off your sins, 
and so deliver your soul from the growing death-blight ol 
sin, and secure its happiness of salvation. But if, instead of 
this, you must needs charge your depraved nature upon your 
Maker — make no effort to mortify it — continue to indulge it, 
pleading, against your own reason, that you are not to blame 
for the wilful indulgence of depraved appetites, because they 
are natural — and so deliberately sin your soul to death — will 
not that reason write for epitaph on the tombstone of your 
eternal grave, " Thou fool !" 



392 SERMONS BY THE LATE 



" Either make the tree good^ and his fruit good ; or else make 
the tree corrupt^ and his fruit corrupt^'' — Matt. xii. 33. 

In that delightful specimen of historic candor and simpli- 
city, the "Account of the Voyages and Discoveries of the 
English Nation," written by Richard Hakluyt, in the latter 
part of the sixteenth century, you will find mention of a new 
kind of timber, which you will readily recognize from the 
description, but which had then only just begun to be im- 
ported from the southeastern coast of this continent into 
England. "It is said," says Hakluyt, "that the Spaniard 
hath made much of it, polishing it into a rare lustre, so as to 
make of it several kind of the curiousest and beautifulest 
furniture, fit for their king's palace ; birt our English artifi- 
cers complain that they can make no account of it, because 
by reason of its desperate hardness it frayeth and spoileth 
their sharpest implements." He proceeds to give them the 
common-sense advice, instead of giving up the stubborn tim- 
ber as a hopeless subject, instead of continuing the attempt 
to work it w^ith their imperfect implements, to send to the 
Spaniards and learn the art of fabricating such as should be 
competent to deal with it. In order to work efiiciently upon 
any subject, upon any substance, whether in the way of 
changing its form or in any way turning it to useful account, 
it is of the first importance that we understand its nature, in 
order to adapt our efiforts and instrumentalities accordingly ; 
seeing that, from the difierent nature of different subjects, 
the means which would be perfectly adequate in the one 
case may be perfectly useless in another. The instrument 
with which wood may ]-eadily be carved into any shape, 
might be employed on a block of marble for time indefinite, 
without beginning to fashion it into any of the shapes of 
beauty it is capable of assuming. He who, having ascer- 
tained the means by which the softer metals may be wrought 
and moulded, should try them on iron, steel, platinum, would 
find his labor lost. Just so the species of tilling, cropping, 
which would be perfectly adapted to one kind of soil, might 
be useless, or worse, if applied to another soil of a different 
chemical composition. The means by which the thriftiness 
of one kind of tree, and the size and flavor of its fruit, are 
promoted, may actually kill another. 



EEY. WM. B. WEED. 393 

Behold, in the principle involved in these several examples, 
the chief object we have had in view in preaching, for a few 
Sabbaths past, on the native character of man. The thing 
of all others in this world which it most behooves us to under- 
stand, is human nature. It is part of every one of us. It is 
part of those, all those our fellow-creatures, with whom we daily- 
come in contact, and on whom it is our duty or our privilege to 
exert an influence. In fact, it is our chief vocation in this world 
to grow better, and help to make each other better; not merely 
to improve our lands, to improve the breed of our cattle, to im- 
prove our streets, our dwellings, our means and style of living, 
but to improve and perfect human nature (I use the term here, 
as in the former discourses, only in a moral sense), as it exists 
in ourselves, as it exists in others. But in order to this we 
must understand its essential moral proj^erties and com- 
plexions, that we may adapt our means accordingly. Other- 
wise, if we go to work in the dai'k, ignorant of what we are 
to work upon, we are likely to find ourselves as much at 
fault as reo'ards the instrumentalities we undertake to work 
with, as the English artificers of Hakluyt's time in attempt- 
ing to carve mahogany with tools fit only to make an im- 
pression on far less close-grained timber. 

I. Man, then, is a creature of mighty capabilities. Not 
the most strenous denier of depravity, not the most enthusi- 
astic eulogist of humanity, can possibly have higher ideas of 
them than we have. It is impossible it should be otherwise. 
It is impossible that God's masterpiece should occupy an 
insignificant position, or play an insignificant part, in God's 
creation. Let him do his worst in the way of self-degrada- 
tion, he is still man. He cannot unmake his essential being. 
He cannot annihilate, or divest himself of a single one of these 
powers by which the Creator has distinguished him from 
every earthly, and assimilated liim to every heavenly crea- 
ture. Still, as the great poet asserts respecting the leader of 
the first rebellion against the Almighty : — 

" His form had not yet lost 
All her orierinal brightness, nor appear'd 
Less than archanorel rain'd, and th' excess^ 
Of glory obscured; as when the sun new risen, 
Looks through the horizontal misty air, 
Shorn of his beams ; or from behind the moon 
In dim eclipse disastrous twilight sheds — " 

but still the sun, in his essential vastness and brightness dark- 
ened — so yet shone, above all his leagued intelligences, the 



394 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

archangel ; — so man, though fallen as low as he will, as low 
as he can, is still the paragon of earth, with the prerogatives 
and attributes of the iirst-born of every creature, and the 
child of God. Take every thing that hath breath besides, 
every insect, every reptile, every beast, every thing that 
swims or flies — and in that which determines a creature's 
essential position in the scale of being — in the power for 
good or for evil — in the power to glorify the Maker, or in 
the power to affi'ont him — one single man outweighs them 
all. 

II. But the undisguisable fact is, that man is fallen — self- 
dethroned from the moral position he was originally meant 
to occupy; that with all the powers which constituted his 
soul's primeval furniture, -he is naturally disposed and de- 
termined to make the worst possible use of them. A strange 
discordance was witnessed in connection with the most 
eventful of modern battles, when several of the officers, un- 
expectedly summoned from a scene of pleasure to the field, 
went forth in the costume with which they had apparelled 
themselves for the ball-room, to meet the foe in bloody fight. 
A stranger contrast still is witnessed in the entire human 
race, coming forth one after the other on the stage of moral 
action, in the moral and intellectual apparel which the Maker 
hath given them, to fight him ; as naturally as the young 
quadruped goes forth into his pasture field, betaking them- 
selves to the field of defiance against the author of their ex- 
istence ; the whole momentum of their nature urging them 
not to respect the precepts and fear the sanctions of his law 
of goodness, but to break it ; not to do good but evil, and 
that continually. But such, we repeat, is the fact respecting 
man, universal and particular. It is the most momentous 
subjective fact concerning him. It must lie* at the basis of 
all our calculations respecting him. It must pre-eminently 
enter into all our plans and projects for improving him. He 
has great capabilities, say you. And so — of course in a far 
lower sense — has a shapeless log of wood, or block of marble. 
Each is capable of very useful purposes. But neither is 
good for any thing as it now is. Now, not even so much as 
that can be said of man as he is by nature. He is not only not 
capable of any morally useful purpose, but a positively hurt- 
ful, injurious, destructive element in the moral universe; 
not only not inclinable to good, but prone to evil ; not only 
not a child of God, but a child of wrath ; not only not his 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 395 

cheerful vassal, but his determined foe. And this is by na- 
ture. The timber, the stone, and other substances, may be 
made subservient to valuable ends by merely altering their 
outward form, and without changing any of their original 
properties. But man, the born sinner, the naturally depraved 
victim not of a superficial but a heart leprosy which is as 
old as he is, must first be cured of that, must first be divested 
of the native property, propensity, which inclines him only 
to bad ends, before he can be made subservient to good 
ones. 

III. Hence it is plain to see, that the ordinary methods 
which have been so much vaunted to make or keep men 
virtuous, to make them followers of that which is good, or 
prevent them from being otherwise, are wholly inadequate — 
are so many prescriptions, which, because they are totally 
powerless as regards the fundamental cause of the evil, can 
never eradicate it ; so many remedies, which, because they 
do not reach the seat of the disease, can never cure it. Let 
us direct your attention to one or two of them, and see, in 
the light of the truth which has been the subject of our 
former discourses, what they have done, or are likely to 
do, in this behalf. 

1. Human government. It has long been the fashion to 
charge much of the evil that exists among men upon bad 
government, and to cry up certain forms of civil polity as 
the special nurseries of virtue. Now it is not denied that 
under some forms of government the state of public morals 
may be expected to be worse, the development of evil prin- 
ciples may be expected to be greater, than under others. 
The oak of the United States is a giant. The oak of Lap- 
land is a scrub. Humboldt found, in the tropical region of 
South America, certain poisonous plants, such as he had been 
familiar with in his own ISTorthern Germany, but whose 
poison there was not half so virulent as in the former coun- 
try. But the oak of Lapland is still an oak, as well as that 
of our own country. The plants in question are as positively 
poisonous in Europe as in South America. The peculiarity 
of soil and climate stimulates the growth of the tree and the 
strength of the virus in the one case, and diminishes both in 
the other; but does not alter the nature of either, in either 
case. Even so a bad government, where a time-serving ser- 
viHty, bribery, and corruption, is the order of the day, may 
stimulate the depraved propensities of men, and make them 



396 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

worse than they would otherwise be. A government con- 
ducted on the principles of impartial justice and rectitude, 
may do much to correct those propensities, and make men 
less bad than they would otherwise be. But neither can 
eradicate their depravity, and make them morally good. 
" How small," says Goldsmith, '' of all the ills that men en- 
dure, that part which courts or kings can cause or cure." 
We may say the same respecting the moral evil that prevails 
in the world. Kings, courts, cabinets, legislators, do not 
cause it, nor can they cure it. The difference between the 
worst and the best government in this respect is, that under 
the former, human depravity is suffered to go at large — under 
the latter, it is in a measure kept under lock and key ; but to 
restrain the manifestations of a bad principle is not to destroy 
it — much less to replace it by one of the opposite character 
— any more than to dam up a stream of water is to dry it 
up, or to change it to another kind of fluid. To restrain 
men from doing certain kinds of evil, which is all that the 
best government can do, is not to efface the evil complexion 
of their nature, or make them good. So' that, as Socrates, 
when urged by a friend to escape from the prison where he 
was awaiting death, asked him if he knew any place where 
people did not die, we may ask, with the certainty of a similar 
answer, — Do you know of any country, under any civil pol- 
ity, from that of ISTimrod to that of the patriots of '76 and 
'87, where people do not sin — do not, and did not display 
the unmistakable marks of a heart, sworn rebel against its 
God — of an untamed depravity. 

2. That depravity cannot be cured by education. We use 
the word in the largest sense it will bear, where man is the 
sole teacher, as well as pupil. We need hardly say that 
merely to cultivate the mind, to sharpen the intellectual fac- 
ulties, is not to improve the heart. Ignorance is indeed the 
handmaid of vice ; but the opposites of either have by no 
means necessarily so intimate a relation. Intelligence and 
virtue by no means necessarily go hand in hand ; if they did, 
Satan, perhaps the greatest of intelligences, ought to be the 
greatest of saints. The most intellectual period of Roman 
history — the Augustan age — was the most corrupt in morals. 
Paris, the so-called intellectual capital of the civilized world, 
we fear deserves to be styled the capital of the whole world 
in point of immorality. We know a great deal more than 
the Puritans. In point of mental cultivation we are, in many 



EKV. WM. B. WEED. 397 

respects, out of sight of them ; but we fi'ar that, in point of 
general virtue and correct morals, they were almost as far in 
advance of us. But we have often insisted that education 
includes the cultivation of the heart as well as of the mind. 
In this sense then, what has it done, what is it likely to do, 
to uproot depravity out of it ? And we answer, it has done, 
it can do nothing. We would not undervalue the assidu- 
ous inculcation of moral duty, especially in the young ; but 
the most it can be expected to do is to produce correct habits, 
not to create good principles or to extirpate bad ones. There 
will be found as sound morality as need be in the sayings 
of Socrates, the essays .of Seneca, the ethical writings of 
Cicero, and of several illustrious names in our own language ; 
yet a celebrated living writer has justly consigned them all 
to contempt as regards the moral effect they have produced 
in the world, compared with the influence of the practical 
philosophy of Bacon, on the mind, the intellect of the world. 
That philosophy which taught the true method of interpret- 
ing nature, of conducting investigation in every department 
of science, produced an intellectual revolution in every civil- 
ized country under heaven ; but do you believe that Socrates, 
and Cicero, and Seneca, and all our modern moralists to- 
gether, ever revolutionized one heart — made one single 
human being a lover of all that is good and a hater of all 
that is evil — which is the least we can understand by extir- 
pating or curing him of his depravity. Urge it upon indi- 
viduals that this, that, or the other virtue is right ; that this, 
that, or the other vice is wrong ; that the former are hon- 
orable, and the latter mean ; that the former are passports 
to happiness, and the latter to shame and remorse: but 
while the heart opposeth the argument of its attachment to 
the former, to counteract all the considerations you address 
to the reason, the most that you can hope to do is to effect 
a cleansing of the outside of the cup and platter. You may 
make your pupil avoid the vices you condemn ; but you can- 
not make him hate them. You may make him practise the 
virtues you inculcate ; but you cannot make him love them 
with all his heart. In a word, your moral lessons may pro- 
duce an improvement in his habits, which will render him a 
a better and more useful member of society ; but not the 
change of heart which is needful to make him a better man ; 
even as you may take a quantity of thorn-bushes, and by 
cutting, trimming, pruning them, make them answer a use- 

34 



398 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

ful purpose — make a hedge of them to help inclose your 
field, — but you cannot change their nature, you cannot make 
them bear grapes. 

3. Human depravity is not to be cured by the action of 
social influenceSi I am not insensible of the importance of 
these influences. Even a gang of pirates and highway rob- 
bers, afliliated together, v^ill do something to keep each other 
in order, and be more tolerable than the solitary desperado 
who is independent of all social restraints. Nor do I doubt 
that the best man on earth is indebted for part of the good- 
ness which distinguishes him, to the social influences he is 
surrounded by. Men living in a sopial state must, as a mat- 
ter of self protection, erect a standard of public sentiment 
by which w^hatever is injurious to the public shall be put 
under the ban. And so far all is well — but the question is, 
Did you ever know or hear of any society of men, — of 
a merely secular description I mean, — whether ancient or 
modern, in this country, or any other, w^hose standard of 
public opinion sanctioned every thing which the word of 
God prescribed as virtuous, and proscribed every thing 
which the w^ord of God condemns as wrong? Never. No 
society ever existed which did not compound for the re- 
straints it imposes on its members in certain respects, for the 
public good, by authorizing various indulgences, which the 
God of virtue no more tolerates than any that it forbids. For 
all the influence of society, a man may dress as he pleases in 
private. For all — yea, tender its influence and sanction — he 
may do many things which God does not approve. How 
long, then, before society, which does not even bend a univer- 
sal power on the outward manifestations of his depravity, is 
to cure him of the inward principle and essence of it ? A 
quantity of stones subjected to mutual friction — see a speci- 
men of it on the beach yonder — may round, and smooth, 
and polish each other's surface, but they are still all the same 
inside ; they are still nothing but stones. Even so a refine- 
ment of manners, the polish of a superficial virtue, an out- 
side goodness, is the natural result of mutual contact and 
social intercourse among the depraved specimens of our 
fallen humanity ; but this influence does not reach the inte- 
rior of the system, or change its nature. It may make them 
polite, friendly, benevolent to each other; but it does not 
make them the friends of God, or beget a virtue (none other 
deserves the name) whose foundation is laid in the love of 



KKV. WM. B. WEED. 399 

him. Polished, refined, courteous, sympathetic, their nature 
is still depraved — their hearts still enmity to God. 

IV. The only remedy for that depravity is the gospel, and 
the divine influences which God has associated with it. To 
acknowledge the former, is to see the need and confess the 
adaptedness of the latter. Tell us of evidences of Christi- 
anity. We tell you the most convincing evidence is to be 
found in human nature itself, such as it was before the gospel 
was preached, even in outhne, to Abraham or to Adam. Can- 
not reason pronounce that the God of love was not likely to 
be deaf to the Macedonian cry which that wretched, fallen 
nature — self disabled to rise again — sent up to him ; and that, 
if he was not, he was sure to adopt the very means to raise and 
restore it which is contained in this volume ? Not the pro- 
phetic hand of Isaiah or Zechariah beckon us more signifi- 
cantly to God's Messiah, our sanctification and redemption, 
than do the lamentations of their almost contemporary heathen 
sages over the prevailing corruptions of their race — their de- 
spairing declarations as to the hopelessness of human means to 
retrieve them, and the need of a divine power to do so. If they 
are right, and God is love, and pity, and compassion, why tlien 
just this Gospel-Messiah may be looked for. Let the prob- 
lem be distinctly stated. Given, a race of beings, possessed 
not of a mere occasional, superficial moral malady, but of a 
universal plague of the heart, native children of wrath, 
natural God-haters : required to place them in the same re- 
lation to God, his law, his government, his eternal favor, 
which his oldest earthly son assumed in the first moment 
that he woke to being. Behold the problem ! — see what is 
given, and what required. And what is the answer ? Christ ! 
Not in all God's physical or providential adaptations in the 
world, in the universe, can an example be found where ex- 
isting conditions are met with so perfect a provision, where 
existing necessities are ofiTset with so perfect a remedy, as 
here. Man's depraved nature has filled his life with sin, from 
which he must be redeemed, or he is lost. Behold the re- 
deeming blood of Christ ! Man's depraved nature has inca- 
pacitated him to be holy, which he must be in order to serve 
God acceptably and see his face in peace. Holy he cannot be, 
serve God acceptably he cannot, without a thorough, radical 
change of his moral nature. Behold the regenerating, sanc- 
tifying spirit of Christ ! Does the haft fit more j^erfectly to 
the blade — the most carefully measured garment to the per- 



400 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

son — the wheels, and braces, and levers of the most skilfully 
contrived machine to each other, than the provisions of the 
gospel to the moral condition of man ? Redemption by the 
blood of Christ — regeneration, not by baptism, but by the 
Holy Ghost — not by water poured or sprinkled on the per- 
son, but by the Holy Spirit giving a God-ward inclination to 
the will, and thereby a radical change to the heart — are just 
the natural corollaries of the proposition which asserts that 
man is a child of wrath by nature. He who denies this, 
may consistently deny these; but he who, admitting the 
latter doctrine, denies the former, rolls a great stone over the 
grave of the prospects of the universal race. If man is not 
a born child of depravity — no need of a redeeming Christ, 
or a regenerating spirit ; but without the one, and the other, 
no hope for him if he is. 

I. We have already, dear brethren, indicated some of the 
uses of this important doctrine as appropriate to you ; there 
are one or two others to which we would briefly glance at 
present. Among the ordinances which Moses, by divine 
command, delivered to the Hebrew nation, there was one, 
of which the obvious purpose was to prevent them from 
taking too much state upon themselves in view of the dis- 
tinguishing favor God had shown them. At the time of the 
ripening of the first fruits of the land, they were to bring a 
basketful of them to the priest, who was to set it down 
before the altar of the Lord ; " And thou shalt speak and say 
before the Lord thy God, a Syrian, ready to perish, was my 
father." This acknowledgment of the meanness of their 
origin was meant to cure them of being proud of their 
privileges, and make them thankful for the grace which 
chose them when so low, and raised them so high. And 
who, O Christian ! was thy first father ? And what are thy 
appropriate feelings in view of that relationship? If he who 
deduces his birth from loins enthroned, and from the great 
of earth, is proud of his extraction, how ought you to be the 
opposite of proud of thine — from that ungrateful apostate 
who, — made the express copy of Jehovah — with the glorious 
likeness of God for his birthright — with an Eden for his 
home, and a world for his realm, — exchanged that image for 
Satan's, and betrayed liis God-given world to the powers of 
darkness. Behold your father. Behold the proof of that 
relationship in your own natural likeness to him — partaker of 
of the same apostate nature — a voluntary actor of the 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 401 

same apostate spirit. If the world could load thee with 
her choicest honors, could she lift thee to the highest pin- 
nacle of her vaunted distinctions, would not the conscious 
degradation of a natural-born child of guilt and wrath make 
thee cast thyself down to the very dust, saying, "A self- 
polluted, God-outraging Adam was my father ; and I his no 
less self-polluted, no less God-affronting son ! Shame upon 
me, but glory to his grace, that pitifully looked upon me, 
when so low, and raised me up so high !" Then, too, the 
humiliating conviction that sin is natural to man, natural to 
you; that it extends its deleterious influences through all 
your faculties — how should it excite you to watchfulness and 
unceasing efforts against its subtle and powerful operations! 
All your self- examinations, prayers, praises, hopes, resolutions, 
and efforts, should take their peculiar character from the 
great truth that you are a depraved, ruined creature ; that 
in regaining the lost pattern of an Eden-hohness, it is not 
impulse merely, not habit merely, but nature itself which 
you have to fight, in a daily struggle, where every inch of 
ground has to be disputed; demanding your utmost efforts, 
with all the reinforcement which your great Captain's grace, 
and the inworking of his Spirit's power can give. Now 
wake thee to the magnitude of that struggle, and fight down 
that sinful nature, till the glorious image of the second Adam 
shineth full-orbed in thee, and the total depravity which 
you have inherited from your first father, be exchanged for 
the total purity which he inherited from his. 

II. We pray believing parents to consider the application 
of this doctrine w^ith reference to their offspring. Every 
child you have, be it ten years, or three, or only so many 
wrecks or days old, is a specimen of a fatal truth we have 
been insisting on. That little prattler whose presence makes 
the light of your dwelling, and whose voice its music, — he 
with the golden locks, and the sunny eye, and the beauty of 
an angel, — has the heart of a devil in him. Depravity is 
there, only w^aiting for its wings to grow in order to fly. A 
sinful nature is there, only waiting for his understanding to 
discern between good and evil, in order, with a fatal preci- 
sion, to choose the latter. It is a young enemy of God that 
you are fondling on your knees ; it is an embryo rebel against 
Heaven that you are clasping to your bosom. Can you be- 
gin too early to try to make him otherwise ? Will you let 
the fatal taint become ingrained by habit, before you try to 

84* 



402 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

efface it ? Will you let the seed of the serpent germinate 
and ripen, before you try to extirpate it ? And remember, 
that, do your best, there is something still wanting,^^^hich 
you cannot do. De23ravity, even in the gristle, is too rigid 
for you to bend. A sinful heart, even in its first manifesta- 
tions, is too hard for you to soften. A sinful nature, even in 
its elemental state, is too stubborn for you to change. Con- 
nected, then, with all your efforts in behalf of your child, 
yea, before he is capable of being influenced by them (for 
even then it may be available), let the ear of God be impor- 
tuned with the perpetual petition — " Create in him a clean 
heart, and renew a right spirit within him !" 

III. With the man who is overtaken by misfortune, it mat- 
ters little whence it originated: his chief concern is, to extri- 
cate himself from it. With one who is encompassed with 
danger, it matters little w^hat caused it : his chief business is, 
to escape it. With the traveller who has lost his way, it 
matters little how he came to : his chief interest is, to get on 
the right track again. And so, dear sinner, the fact that 
chiefly concerns you as a moral being is, that you are a vol- 
untary sinner against God. How you came to be, is a sec- 
ondary consideration. That you are so by nature, no more 
diminishes than it enhances the guilt of your voluntary trans- 
gressions ; no more mitigates than it aggravates their right- 
eous penalty. Your great business, your chief interest is, to 
escape that penalty, to be rid of the character, rid of the 
guilt of a sinner. We have shown you to-day the only way 
in which this may be done. Now, there is one point of view 
in which the fact that you are a sinner by nature is one of 
the gravest consideration. It does not diminish your guilt, 
but it does increase the difficulty of escaping its consequences. 
It does not mitigate your penalty, but it does enhance the 
probability of your forcing it upon you. Your whole nature 
stands between you and reconciliation with God ; the whole 
heart and inclination of your soul holds you back from the 
cross of Christ ; all the currents of your heart are setting you 
away from heaven. What, then, is the probabiHty ? That 
you will never be reconciled to God ; that you will never 
seek refuge in the cross ; that you will never see heaven ! 
You hope, we hope, better things for you ; but if that hope 
is to be realized, then, in the name of God, can you begin 
too soon that mighty work by which the force of nature is 
to be broken through — by which you are to forsake the sin 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 403 

that you naturally love, for the God whom you naturally 
hate — and the Christ, at whose salvation (all of grace) the 
pride of your nature spurns, is to be humbly and believingly 
embraced ? Look you, that habit is adding its ever-growing 
reinforcement to nature. The image of the old poet, of the 
two wintry torrents, which unite their streams and sweep 
every thing before them, is fulfilled in thee. The daily- 
swelling force of sinful habit is joining with the force of a 
sinful nature, to sweep thee away from the arms of Christ. 
Is it not now or never with thee ? Oh, wake to the danger 
of thy soul ! Awake, thou lost one, or thou art lost indeed ! 
Awake, thou child of wrath, or the full measure of thy dread 
inheritance is thine beyond repeal! Awake, and take the 
kingdom of heaven by violence, or the kingdom of darkness 
is sure of thee ! 



The Last Sermon written by the Author. 

^''For after that, in the wisdom of God, the looidd hy wisdom 
knew not God, it pleased God hy the foolishness of preaching to 
save them that helieveP — 1 Cor. i. 21. 

The two main sources of our knowledo^e of external thino's 
are wisdom and faith. Our consciousness teaches us the facts 
and phenomena of our personal being ; but the sum total of 
what we know of things without ourselves consists mainly in 
what we find out by our own sagacity, invention, ingenuity, 
— in one word, by our wasdom ; and what w^e believe on the 
credit of others. And the actual amount of knowledge de- 
rived from the latter source is, beyond all comparison, greater 
tlian from the former. We know a thousand times more by 
faith than we do by wisdom. For example: most of our 
adult hearers have at least a general knowledge of the great 
drama of the world's history for the last three thousand years. 
But, to say nothing of the past, — of w^hich you know abso- 
lutely nothing except from the testimony of the historians 
that have explored it, — of how many of the leading events of 
the various nations of the world, yea, of our own America, 
in the first five months of this year 1860, can you pretend to 
have made personal discovery — that is, to have found them out 



404 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

yourselves ? Perhaps not a tenth, perhaps not a hundredth ; 
and all you know of the rest has no other basis than your be- 
lief — your fiiith in the statements of men of whom, in most 
cases, you have no personal knowledge. So as to the various 
contrivances to save labor, to abbreviate or to annihilate 
space, to minister to human comfort and enjoyment — print- 
ing-machines, weaving-machines, spinning and sewing ma- 
chines ; and then the endless variety of ways in which steam, 
electricity, magnetism, have been put in harness to work for 
man — the one fact which is true of every one of them is this : 
the ingenuity, the w^isdom of a single individual invented it, 
and then a thousand others took it up on his credit, or on 
the testimony of others, and put it to use. And if further 
proof of our proposition were needed, we might remind you 
how lands are surveyed, coast-lines determined, longitude 
ascertained, ships navigated by instruments and scientific 
tables — which the wisdom of the few have contrived or cal- 
culated, and which the faith of the many has without ques- 
tion adopted. In a w^ord, let this latter source of knowledge 
be abolished, and let every one be left to his own ingenuity, 
and the mass of mankind w^ould be reduced to the plight of 
the daw when plucked of her borrowed feathers. They 
would be well-nigh stripped to the absolute nakedness of ab- 
ject ignorance. Now, the teaching of the text is, that the 
only practicable means of attaining to the most important 
specimen of knowledge — the knowledge of God — is not wis- 
dom, but faith. When the world by wisdom kncAV not God, 
it pleased him to cause a revelation to be proclaimed, by be- 
lieving which, through faith in which, a saving knowledge of 
the Holy One may be acquired. 

I. The wisdom of this woi'ld has never found out God. 
The sagacity, the ingenuity, the invention of mankind, what- 
ever discoveries they may have made in other branches of 
knowledge, have never made discovery of a Supreme Being, 
the worthy Lord and Saviour of men — over, and fit to be 
over all, and blessed forever. You perceive that this propo- 
sition, if true, necessarily involves another; that humiin wis- 
dom is, and has ever been, wholly at fault as regards the 
invention or discovery of a rational system of religion. For, 
as observed here lately, to construct a science, one must have 
respect to its fundamental facts. If we mistake or distort 
them, our system will be unstable and rickety, as a stone 
building reared on a foundation of wood, hay, stubble. Thus 



REV. WM. B. AVEKD. 405 

the fundamental fact of our planetary system is the central 
position and all- controlling attraction of the sun. As long 
as that fact was ignored, and the sun was supposed to be a 
great fire-ball, performing daily gyrations round the earth, 
w^hich quietly sat still and warmed herself by it, any thing 
like a true and scientific exposition of that system was out 
of the question. Now, the fundamental fact of religion is 
nothing else but God. The specific acts of religion are the 
worship of God. The obhgations of religion are the duties 
we owe to God. The sanctions of religion are the rewards 
and penalties prescribed by God. From whence it comes to 
pass that a confused and distorted system, inharmonious, cha- 
otic, without form and void, must be the necessary fruit of 
inadequate and erroneous views of God. Behold the reason 
why, in our subsequent remarks under this head, the two 
things are constantly blended and associated. 

1. The unity of God has eluded the discovery of human 
wisdom. The world by wisdom has never found out that 
there is but one God. The heathen Plutarch, in his treatise 
against the atheists, proves them with an argument w^hich 
has been constantly repeated in every demonstration of the 
Divine existence since — that the general consent of mankind 
is against them ; that every part of the world behoves in a 
Deity. The argument is not without weight, in connection 
with others, though it would be worth little if it stood by 
itself A sword to cut down atheism, it would be no less a 
buckler to defend polytheism ; for every part of the world 
believes in a plurality of gods. ''The census of Olympus," 
sneered the skeptic Pyrrhonist, " presents as many names as 
the census of Rome." The doctrine of one God has eluded 
the researches of every tribe and nation known in the world's 
history. Now, whoever believes in that doctrine as a revela- 
tion from Heaven ; who recognizes its conformity to truth and 
right reason ; who sees that the universe has no need and 
no room but for one Jehovah ; who sees that the most ra- 
tional, the worthiest, and the loftiest conception of Deity, is 
that which asserts that the Lord our God is one Lord, and 
concentrates in that singular and exclusive specimen of God- 
head all divine attributes, and confers upon him all divine 
prerogatives, and ascribes to him all divine acts and opera- 
tions, and associates with him all divine honors, — such a one 
cannot fail to see what a disjointed religious system must 
necessarily result from the opposite belief, which makes 



406 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

heaven and earth to swarm with deities, and demands the 
homage of mankind, in certain degrees, for one and all of 
them. He cannot fail to see, in a word, that the religion of 
polytheism is simply a religion of idolatry, in which the true 
God is insulted, mocked, defied, by the transfer of his honors, 
rights, and prerogatives, to a whole rabble rout of rivals, 
begotten by human imagination and superstition. 

2. The researches of human wisdom have never attained 
to a just knowledge of the moral character of God. Take 
the synopsis Avhich Cicero, in his work on the nature of the 
gods, has given of the various opinions held on this subject 
in the times which preceded him, and in his own, which was 
the most enlightened period of all antiquity ; and you will 
find not one in which the Divme nature is projected on a 
scale of moral perfection which challenges the homage or 
even the respect of mankind. It may sound ludicrous, but 
it is an unquestionable truth, that the Pantheon of that day 
did not contain one single respectable character, according 
to any fair standard of morality. Pie who stood at the head 
of it, Jupiter Olympius, — whom Plato and Aristotle, whom 
Cato and Seneca, professed to worship as their supreme god, 
— a man who should make his way into the State of Con- 
necticut and exhibit such a character, and enact such crimes 
of cruel treachery and shameless licentiousness as were as- 
cribed by his own Avorshippers to that prime deity of Greece 
and Rome, could not keep out of the state-prison three 
months. ISTor are the gods of modern paganism any better. 
The truth is, because men did hot like to retain God in their 
knowledge, they have invented another and a legion of oth- 
ers to suit themselves ; man has fallen, and dragged the Deity 
after him — at least so far as his depraved conceptions can do 
it ; man self degraded hath, in his corrupt imaginations, de- 
graded God into a tyrant or an imbecile, unworthy to be 
honored and unfit to reign, while weakness and wickedness, 
treachery and cruelty, prejudice, partiality, and naked injus- 
tice, are the seven spirits which are before his throne. Need 
Ave say AA^hat must be the complexion of the religious systems 
which begin with such a conception of the Divine ]3eing ? 
Can a pure and spiritual faith be bottomed on an impure and 
ifnspiritual God ? Can men who have so poor an opinion of 
the Deity be capable of Avorshipping him in spirit and in 
truth ? If these questions do not carry their answer along 
with, them, let the practical Avorking of the Avorld's religions 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 407 

answer. The true idea of religion is that of a moral and 
spiritual elevator — what else is it good for ? — to lift man from 
his original level and make him better, purer, holier, by 
bringing him into contact and communion with a Divine 
Being in whom these attributes of goodness, purity, and ho- 
liness, reign transcendent. Does any one pretend that the 
world, or any part of it, has experienced any such improve- 
ment from the religions of its own manufacture ? Nations 
have been improved in other respects, by superior minds 
arising among them and leading them in the path of progress, 
or by commerce with or conquest by other and more enlight- 
ened nations. But where is the nation which has advanced 
in moral virtue under the influence of the religious systems 
which their own wisdom has contrived? The Chinese of to- 
day is no better than the contemporary of Confucius. And 
when you seek for the reason of this, you find it at once in 
the lame morality, the erroneous notions of virtue and vice, 
and of the nature and extent of moral obligation, with which 
those religious systems are replete, as the direct result of 
their false notions of the nature and character of God. 

3. The wisdom of the world has never attained to any just 
conception of God as a moral ruler, or as a righteous and 
upright sovereign. For is not the plain definition of a right- 
eous and upright sovereign this — one who is "a terror to 
evil-doers, and a praise to them that do well ;" whose favor 
is not to be bought nor his justice to be bribed ; who clearly 
lays down the law to his subjects, and tells them, " Obey, 
and it shall be well with you — transgress, and the inevitable 
penalty awaits you?" This is moral government, in the 
only proper sense of the word ; the only system that can an- 
swer the legitimate ends* of government in the fimily, or 
state, or nation. Now let us shoAV you the direct antithesis 
of it : a ruler whose subjects, if they have a boon to ask of 
him, must offer him some propitiatory gift or present ; or, 
if they have a score of crime to settle with him, must offer 
him something in the way of propitiatory equivalent or 
compensation. What sort of a ruler is that whose favor 
can be had only by being bought for so much ; whose dis- 
pleasure can be averted only by being bought off for so 
much ; nothing to be expected from his impartial rectitude, 
no calculations to be made except on his venal and merce- 
nary disposition ? Who would respect him ? Who would 
not despise him ? Yet this is the definition of a ruling God 



408 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

a^ the world's wisdom has conceived him. The classic an- 
cient, M^hen going on his travels, or going to sea, or going 
to war, knew no better way to pi'ocure from the deity a 
prosperous journey, a happy voyage, a victorious campaign, 
than by plying him with votive gifts beforehand ; and the 
heathen now w^ho seeks a successful issue for an undertaking, 
a fruitful harvest for his fields, or health for a sick member 
of his family, goes to his god and tells him,- in effect, " Grant 
me these things, and I will give you this sack of rice, or this 
pot of ghee," or whatever else he may be able to furnish, in 
payment for them. And how has the world, both ancient 
and modern, expected and sought the cancellation of of- 
fences from the Deity? By nothing else than sheer bribery. 
" I bring this lamb, this goat, this bullock, to the altar. I 
kill him and sacrifice him in honor of thee. Now, in con- 
sideration of this offering, blot out mine iniquities." Such 
is the universal language of mankind, except where revela- 
tion has taught them better; and such is the only divine 
sovereign that the world's wisdom knows, — a sovereign 
whose throne is established, not in righteousness, but in ve- 
nality, all a stranger to the principles of impartial rectitude 
that makes him reward the good because of their goodness, 
and punish the transgressor because of his sins ; whom gifts, 
and offerings, and oblations, can bribe to favor us without 
any reference to our character, and bribe not to punish us, 
however much we deserve it. Need we indicate the practi- 
cal working of this belief in a mercenary deity, whose sub- 
jects, without regard to their character, can buy his good- 
will, and buy off his vengeance, at such a price ! Does it 
not tend directly to confound the antagonism of right and 
wrong, to make character worthless, and the distinctions of 
character of no account ? Can any thing be more corrupting 
and demoralizing than to teach mankind that the question 
how tliey are to stand with the Supreme Being is essentially 
determined, not by their virtuous or vicious principles, but 
by the question how much they have, or are wdlling to give 
him, and that he only has nothing to hope from a propitious, 
and every thing to fear from a frowning Heaven, who gives 
notliing, or has nothing to give. Yet this is the teaching 
of the world's wisdom — this the direct corollary from its 
conceptions of Deity. We add briefly, — 

4. The w^orld by wisdom knows nothing of God as a 
Saviour. We know of nothing in its various religious sys- 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 409 

terns which can give even plausibility to the opposite aver- 
ment, unless it be that feature which characterizes them all — 
the universality of sacrifices. Now, we have no doubt that 
sacrificial oblations were originally a divine appointment, 
made immediately after the fall, and intended to direct the 
faith of mankind to that illustrious sacrifice, that plenary 
offering for sin, which He himself was to make in the fulness 
of time. And we have as little doubt that the universality 
of such sacrifices even to the present day, except where 
Christianity has supplanted them, is to be accounted for from 
the fact that, thus prescribed to fallen Adam, they were tra- 
ditionally adopted by all his posterity. But it is no less cer- 
tain that the original purpose for which they Avere appointed 
was early lost sight of, except in the Abrahamic family by 
the aid of revelation ; and that not the slightest trace of any 
conception of it can be found in the unchristianized world of 
the present day. The men, the ti'ibes, the nations, who drag 
their animal victims to the altar, and sacrifice them to the 
gods, have no faith in, no thought, no knowledge of any 
typical relation that they bear to a greater sacrifice and a 
mightier victim of God's own providing. No ; but, as be- 
fore remarked, they ofier them simply as gifts or presents, 
to go for what they are intrinsically worth towards propitia- 
ting the good-will or deprecating the displeasure of the 
deity. No evangelical element can be detected in any sys- 
tem of heathenism. It is all legalism. Every man is to 
expect from his god according to that he hath done — not 
according to that which some adequate daysman has done, 
or may do for him. The doctrine of a vicarious atonement, 
of the substitution of divine innocence for human guilt, of 
the pardon of sin on the ground of a more than animal, 
better than human sacrifice — the experience of every Chris- 
tian missionary attests that when first presentea to the hea- 
then mind, it is invariably received as an absolute novelty ; 
as when a child is told, for the first time, that the earth ro- 
tates on its axis, or that the tides rise from the attraction of 
the moon ; that is, it is something of which they had had 
previously no idea or conception whatever. 

II. Now, with a view to bring this subject somewhat 
nearer to the minds of our hearers, we beg to ask them, 
What, after all, is your opinion. — not from our representa- 
tions merely, but from your own knowledge, — what is your 
candid judgment on what the wisdom of the world has done, 

85 



410 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

as regards its discoveries of God, and the religious systems 
which it has founded on them ? These are matters which 
have occupied the human mind for well-nigh sixty centuries. 
Enlightened, civiHzed, barbarous nations all have had, and 
have, their conceptions of Deity, and of the relations, duties, 
obligations of man to Deity. The world has probably thought 
more, talked more, written more, disputed more on these 
subjects than on all other subjects put together. The results 
are embodied in the present religious aspect of the world, 
its various regions and sections. Now, what do you think 
of these results ? Christendom apart, do you know of any 
portion of mankind that believes in a god w^hom you could 
rationally reverence, or holds a religious creed to which you 
could rationally subscribe ? We know your verdict. Give 
you all the gods of human invention to choose from and to 
say. Which shall I adopt as mine ; and all the religions of 
human devising to select from and to say, Which shall I em- 
brace as mine ; you would choose none — you would reject 
them all — you would pronounce the whole an unsafe basis 
to rest the hopes and the destinies of an immortal soul upon. 
In plain words, you pronounce all that the wisdom of the 
world has done in this matter, an utter failure ; that all hu- 
man attempts to discover a true God, and a true religion, 
have accomplished nothing to which enhghtened reason can 
concede its sanction. 

III. It comes to this, then, that if the knowledge in ques- 
tion be attainable at all, the source from w^ience we are to 
look for it is not wisdom but faith ; not to the inventions and 
discoveries of human wisdom, but to the disclosures of a 
divine revelation. The former has been tried and failed. 
The latter is the only alternative. Well, here is a revelation 
— or what makes the only rational pretension to be so — which 
proposes tcPgive the fullest information on these very sub- 
jects, in which God, in the mode of his being, his character, 
and his moral relations, is comprehensively and minutely set 
forth as the basis of a corresponding system of religious be- 
lief. Of course this revelation is addressed to our faith, and 
must be accepted accordingly, if at all — that is, it must be 
believed and embraced as a communication from Heaven. 
Now, let us briefly indicate the grounds on which it is 
recommended to our faith as worthy of all acceptation. 

1. We allege the fact developed under the first head of 
this discourse. We suppose it will be taken as a rational 



EEV. WM. B. WEED. 411 

proposition, that God cannot be expected to do for us what 
we can do for ourselves. But is not the converse of this 
proposition equally rational, that that which is of the ut- 
most consequence to us, and which we cannot do for our- 
selves, God may be expected to do for us ? If, some morn- 
ing this week, it were reported that all the fields in this 
region, untouched the night before, had been ploughed, or 
shorn of their green burden by a supernatural hand, or that 
a dozen buildings, of which only the foundations had been 
laid, were all completed in the hours of a single night, by a 
supernatural power, aside from any human agency — the in- 
formation would strike you as in the last degree incredible. 
The Almighty put himself in harness to do man's ordinary work 
for him ! Not to be heard. But how has man, in the blind- 
ness and ignorance of a sinful nature, been groping for six 
thousand years to find out God, and miserably failed — proved 
himself wholly incapable of making any adequate discoveries 
of him ! Is it strange that God should help him ? There is 
assuredly no knowledge of half the consequence to us as — 
what is God ? What is he to us, and we to him — and what 
does he mean to do with us ? Human reason has tried its 
hand upon these questions, and failed to give a satisfactory 
answer. Here, now, is what purports to be God's answer to 
them. And what can more strongly commend it to our faith 
than that it proposes to enlighten us on these points — the 
nature of God, his relations to us, and his purposes respect- 
ing us — on which we infinitely need light, while it has been 
thoroughly demonstrated that we can get it nowhere else. 
If God ever deigned to speak to man directly, or interpose 
directly in his behalf, is it not most credible that he should 
do so on an occasion and for an end like this ? 

2. Let us briefly add that this a mode of acquiring knowl- 
edge which we are perfectly used to. There would be some 
sense in the outcry raised by many against accepting the 
statements of this volume as to the being and relations of 
God — as a matter of mere faith — if this were the only occa- 
sion on which we were required to do any thing of the kind. 
But the truth is, as observed at the outset, we get almost 
all our knowledge, of every description, by faith — belief in 
the testimony of others. For example, we suppose that 
every man here will perform, next autumn, the highest and 
most sacred civil duty of an American citizen — will vote for 
some individual for President of the United States whom he 



4:12 SERMONS BY THE LATE 

has nevei' seen, of whom he knows nothing personally — of 
Avhom he knows nothing at all, except by faith — blind, im- 
plicit faith in the statements of others, which he has heard 
or read. Yet on this ground he will be ready to designate 
that individual as fit to be intrusted with the administration 
of this great empire, at this eventful period of its history. 
Is it unreasonable to believe in and to vote for as our Chief 
Magistrate, Sovereign, and Saviour, the God whose being, 
attributes, and relations are here vouched to us on God's 
own testimony? 

3. And if you ask on what ground are we to believe it is 
God's testimony? we answer shortly, as we must, on the 
ground of its own intrinsic evidence. That is not all ; but 
it is enough. Not one in thousands could have invented the 
printing-press, or the electric telegraph ; but when invented, 
everybody can see their perfect adaption to the ends pro- 
posed. Not one in millions could have discovered the Co- 
pernican system of the heavens ; but when discovered, every- 
body can see that it is the true one, the only system that 
harmonizes and accounts for all the phenomena of the heaven- 
ly bodies. And be it that the united wisdom of all the millions 
of the sons of men could never discover such a God, or invent 
such a religion as that of the Bible, yet every one, not wil- 
fully blind, can see that the one and the other is the only 
true one. A Supreme Being, august in the solitary unity 
which admits no rival, and no second — glorious and infinite 
in every perfection, matchlessly powerful, boundlessly good, 
immaculately holy, inflexibly just — administering a moral 
government, which is the patron and the rewarder of nothing 
but goodness, and the denouncer and the scourge of nothing 
but sin — and carrying forward at the same time a scheme of 
redeeming grace, by which, in perfect harmony with the 
principles of that government, sin may be cancelled and the 
sinner saved ; a system of religion which aims to bring man 
into full communion with his Maker, by bidding him love 
him with all his heart, and, when that fails, exhibits the 
Maker accomplishing the same end by becoming a suffering 
victim, and drawing and assimilating man to himself by the 
power of his death, and the attraction of his cross : does not 
reason pronounce that God to be the only true one, and faith 
despair of ever seeing any improvement in that religion? 
And the portraiture of such a God, such a religion — which, 
if it be of human origin, must have been the invention of 



REV. WM. B. WEED. 413 

some of the most ignorant and illiterate of human beings, 
and which yet so immeasurably throws into shade all other 
deities, all other religious creeds which the wisdom of the 
world has ever framed — does not reason combine with faith 
to pronounce it not of men, but from heaven ? Rest sure, 
then, dear hearer, that if a practical believer in this volume, 
and what it claims to be, nothing can be surer than that 
your faith, your hope, your salvation, hath a no less im- 
movable basis than the eternal and enduring word of God ; 
or, if a practical unbeliever, nothing can be more certain 
than that you are refusing him that speaketh from heaven, 
robbing your soul of the salvation of God, and barring the 
door of his mercy against you. 

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